Walter G. McMillen Memorial Award for Parkinson’s Disease Research

Potential research topics that will be funded by this award include, but are not limited to:

• The assessment and treatment of persons with Parkinson’s disease.

• The impact of this diagnosis on family support systems (e.g., caregiver burden).

For the purposes of this award, the term "research" is broadly defined to include any scholarly endeavor, including but not limited to experiments, correlational studies, qualitative investigations, historical work, case studies, and evaluation research.
 
However, the focus of this research must be on the assessment, treatment, or management of Parkinson’s disease.

The cash award of $1,000 is intended to offset direct costs associated with the planned research. These may include salaries, equipment, supplies, stipends for study participants, etc.

Note that the monies can be awarded to the candidate’s institution or directly to the applicant.

Indirect costs are not supported by this award. Candidates should contact their grants office to ensure that indirect costs can be waived prior to applying for this award.

The award competition is open to doctoral-level graduate students.

Only one submission per student will be reviewed each year. 

The funded research proposal is expected to be conducted during the next academic year.

To be eligible for this award, the student must initiate and conduct the project under the supervision of a professor or research advisor. The applicant is expected to be the principal investigator on the project.

Research proposals should include:

• An abstract (up to 400 words)

• A research plan (not to exceed five pages using 12-point font or larger), including:

• Specific aims/hypotheses
• Background and significance
• Research design and methods
• How the grant funds will be used
• Cited literature

Applicants must also submit:

• A biographical sketch (not to exceed one page), that includes in list format:

• Schools attended with degrees attained
• Relevant professional position
• Honors
• Society memberships
• Publications and/or paper presentations
• Relevant coursework
• Any other relevant information you would like to include

• A short supporting statement by the faculty sponsor verifying the nature of and the relative contribution to the research by the student submitting the proposal. This statement should be short, not to exceed one paragraph, and emailed directly from the advisor.

Please submit applications electronically as an email attachment to the chair of the Awards Committee, Jennifer Birdsall and Cecilia Poon, with "McMillen Award Submission" noted in the subject line of the email. 

2021

Francesca Lopez

2020

Emma Weizenbaum, MA

2018 

Bonnie M. Scott, MS

2014

Andrea M. Weinstein

2013

Deepti Putcha