Establishment of Awards

Distinguished Achievement
Established and presented in 1978, this award is presented to an active older individual to call attention to the obvious, but often overlooked, fact that older individuals can live full, productive, useful lives.

Denham Harman Research Award
This award, which was established in 1978, is named after Dr. Denham Harman, one of the co-founders of AGE. The award honors a person who has made significant contributions to biomedical aging research.

Walter R. Nicolai Award
Through the generosity of the Paul F. Glenn Foundation, this award was established in 1982 in the name of Walter Nicolai (a long-time board member of AGE who was killed in a skiing accident in 1982) for meritorious research by a graduate or medical student in the area of biomedical gerontology.

Paul F. Glenn Award
To award a post-doctoral candidate who has made special contributions to biomedical aging research. This award was established in 1985 to honor Mr. Paul F. Glenn for his long-term active support of biomedical aging research through the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research.

Exceptional Mentor in Aging Award
Established in 2020, this award honors those that have made significant contributions to the training of students, postdocs and scientists in the field of aging through exceptional mentoring. The person honored by this award has successfully guided and shaped the careers of individuals in the field of aging.

Women in AGE Awards for Mentoring and Scientific Achievement
Established in 2022, the Women in AGE awards were created to celebrate and support the achievement of women researchers and those supporting women in aging research.

Travel Awards

Those students who whose need assistance whose work is of a quality that their attendance warrants subsidization. The deadline to apply for a Travel Award has passed.

 

Congratulations to the 2023 AGE Travel Awardees

Agnieszka Borowik, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation
Alaattin Kaya, Virginia Commonwealth University
Brianah McCoy, Arizona State University
Diana Marcu, University of Glasgow
Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk, University of California at Irvine
Heidi Pak, University of Texas Southwestern
Hongjie Li, Baylor College of Medicine
Ingrid van der Pluijm, Erasmus University Medical Center
Kejun Ying, Harvard Medical School
Layla Brassington, Arizona State University
Leena Bharath, Merrimack College
Manish Chamoli, Buck Institute for Research on Aging
Maria Forni, Yale University
Ming Yang, University of Washington
Nathan Basisty, National Institute on Aging, NIH
Nidheesh Thadathil, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
Payel Sen, National Institute on Aging, NIH
Tianpeng Zhang, University of Minnesota

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Exceptional Mentor in Aging Award 

One of the primary missions of American Aging Association (AGE) is to promote junior investigators in the field of aging. The field has benefited and continues to strengthen with the positive and nurturing environments provided by outstanding mentors. This award honors those that have made significant contributions to the training of students, postdocs and scientists in the field of aging through exceptional mentoring. The person honored by this award has successfully guided and shaped the careers of individuals in the field of aging. 

Criteria

• The nominee and nominator must be current members of the American Aging Association.
• The nominator must be >5 years beyond training if trained in nominee’s laboratory; no time limit applies if the nominator has been trained independent of the nominee. 
• The nominator must convey why the nominee was/is a great mentor not only to the nominator but more broadly. 
• The nominee must have trained individuals who have had or are currently significantly impacting the field [publications, awards, grant support, impact on curricula (course design, workshops), meeting organization, ‘biology of aging influencer’, or other impactful influence on aging research-related activities]. 
• The career trajectory of former trainees will be considered, thus CV’s of the nominator together with supporting letters and CVs from current or former trainees must be included. 

Nominations for this award are due December 1, 2022. The nomination packet should include the CV of the nominee, a primary nomination letter and nominator CV, and at least three supporting letters and CVs from current or former mentees or peers.

Established in 1978 this award was named in honor of Dr. Denham Harman, a co-founder of AGE and honors a person who has made significant contributions to biomedical aging research.

All members of the American Aging Association are eligible to nominate individuals for the awards.

Materials required for nomination include a nomination letter outlining why this individual is deserving of the award, a current CV of the individual and at least two supporting letters. Before nominating a person, please take a look at the website for the list of past awardees. Please note that if an individual has received the Denham Harman Award previously, the nomination will have to justify the contributions of this person since the last award. Once the materials have been collected, the nominator should send the documents to Holly Brown-Borg.

The Awards Committee will review eligibility, compile the documents and create a slate of candidates for the AGE Board on which to vote. 

Congratulations to the 2023 Denham Harman Award recipient Dr. Rafa de Cabo

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Distinguished Achievement

Established and presented in 1978, this award is presented to an active individual to call attention to the obvious, but often overlooked, fact that older individuals can live full, productive, useful lives.

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Women in AGE Awards for Mentoring and Scientific Achievement

Established in 2022, the Women in AGE awards were created to celebrate and support the achievement of women researchers and those supporting women in aging research.

Women in AGE Mentoring Award  The Women in AGE Mentoring Award recognizes a woman whose efforts have encouraged women in aging research. Mentoring efforts may be demonstrated by such things as the number of women mentored in academic, government, or industry positions; assisting students in presenting and publishing their work, finding financial aid, and providing career guidance; providing psychological support, encouragement, and strategies for maintaining work-life balance for early-career professionals in aging research; and continued interest in the individual professional advancement of women scientists.

Criteria

• Self-nominations are not allowed.
• The nominee and nominator must be current members of the American Aging Association.
• The nominee must identify as a woman.
• Letter from nominator (<1 pg) about what makes the nominee an exceptional mentor to women. May include up to three additional letters (<1 pg each) from previous mentees, with details about the nominees exceptional mentoring of women.

The winner of the Women in AGE Mentoring Award will be given a plaque and be invited to a future AGE meeting to speak on the Women in AGE panel with free registration.

Women in AGE Scientific Achievement Award The Women in AGE Scientific Achievement Award is given to early-career researchers who self-identify as women, and who have made substantial contributions to scientific discovery in aging research and the literature, sometimes despite challenges relating to resources, location or language skills. 

Criteria

• Self-nominations are allowed.
• The nominee and nominator must be current members of the American Aging Association.
• The nominee must identify as a woman.
• The nominee must be an early-career researcher (Assistant Professor or equivalent rank [i.e., Research Assistant Professor, Assistant Scientist], regardless of track).
• The nominator should submit the nominees name and email address to AGE by the deadline.
• Upon receipt of the nomination, the nominee will be contacted and given two weeks to provide their NIH Biosketch. In the “Personal Statement” section of the Biosketch, the nominee should describe their contributions to aging research and a challenge they faced in achieving their goals.

The winner of the Women in AGE Scientific Achievement Award will be given a plaque and be invited to a future AGE meeting to speak on the Women in AGE panel with free registration.

Information about scoring the applications:

• The AGE Trainee Chapter (AGE-TC) leadership (Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer, Senior Trainee Advocate) with review the applications and select the top three applicants to be presented to the AGE Awards committee for final selection.
• For the mentoring award, the AGE-TC leadership will read the nomination letters and scored based on how compelling the letters are and the presence of specific anecdotal evidence of superior mentorship. The AGE-TC leadership will each rank-order the nominees to select the top 3
• For the Scientific Achievement award, the applicant will be scored on the following criteria:
• Publications in aging research (scale 0-10, with 10 being the best): Scores will be based on their NCBI bibliography. Higher scores will be given to those with frequent first or last author publications in high quality, peer-reviewed journals centered around the biology of aging.
• Service (scale 0-10, with 10 being the best): Scores will be based on the Positions, Scientific Appointments, and Honors section of the Biosketch, higher scores will be given those who have served the aging research community both locally and nationally mentorship, scientific outreach, scientific volunteering
• Ability to overcome obstacles (scale 0-5, with 5 being the best): Scores will be based off the obstacle described in the personal statement. Higher scores will be given to individuals with a clear and detailed picture of a significant challenge they have overcome in their scientific journey.
  
• Combined scores will be normalized by reviewer (divided by highest score) and then rank-ordered to select the top 3 applicants.

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Awards Presented at Annual Meeting