More good news this week for our 2nd year graduate student Kayla Smith, who was selected as the 2024 POPStar award winner, which recognizes the excellence in service and leadership to the POP graduate program. The POPStar award is generally recognized as the ‘top award’ for our graduate program. This is a highly competitive award, and Kayla was one of two recipients this year. Congratulations, Kayla!
This award is a clear reflection of Kayla’s dedication to the department and the graduate program. Her nomination reflected her service as a graduate student representative (an important, but often largely thankless job), her help in smoothing the transition of our department from HPNP to the new DSIT building, as well as her excellent service roles in coordinating teaching assistants in the PharmD program. I was fortunate enough to have the honor to present Kayla’s award at our recent dinner, in which we honored our departmental awardees and welcomed our 2024 program applicants for their on-site interviews.