CURE Spotlights 2021

UMB CURE Scholars Family Honors

Congratulations to:

Greg Carey, Core Team and Sustainability Committee member, for his new role as assistant dean for student research education, Office of Student Research, School of Medicine and for being awarded the highest University System of Maryland Honor, the USM Regents’ Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentoring!

Susan Cargill-Collura, CURE Advisory Board member, for rejoining Cisco after five years at Dell. She will serve as a client executive supporting U.S. public sector higher education, K-12, and local government customers in Maryland.

Ernesto Chanona, CURE Advisory Board member, for joining CSSI Life Sciences as director of business development as well as being elected to the Board of Directors of the American Red Cross of Central Maryland. Dr. Chanona also was named a member of the Baltimore Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2021.

Al Essien, Core Team and Sustainability Committee member, for his promotion to director of corporate and foundation relations, UMB Office of Philanthropy.

Ann Marie Felauer, CURE instructor and mentor, for being awarded a UMB Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Diversity Recognition Award for her work with the scholars. The award was presented to Dr. Felauer during UMB’s virtual MLK and Black History Month Celebration on Feb. 8.

Quincy Goldsmith, CURE Advisory Board member, who will host the grand opening of STEM and Vine, a new plant shop and event space on North Charles Street, in early 2022. Quincy envisions the shop as a “scientific celebration of global culture viewed through a green lens.” Plants in STEM and Vine will be arranged by their regions of origin: Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Australia. He wants to give people a chance to connect with their culture through the plants they bring into their homes and provide an education to those who are not from these cultures to show that these plants are more than just pretty leaves.

Crystal Harden, CURE Advisory Board member, for being elected chairperson of the Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools. 

Bret Hassel, Core Team and Sustainability Committee member , for co-authoring an article that was published in the Journal of Cancer Education titled “Robust Institutional Support and Collaboration Between Summer Training Programs in Cancer and Biomedicine Drive the Pivot to a Virtual Format in Response to the Covid Pandemic,” along with UMB CURE colleagues Drs. Greg Carey, Laundette Jones, and Elizabeth Parker. Dr. Hassel also received a Leadership Award from the American Association for Cancer Education for his work in planning and implementing the International Conference on Cancer Education in 2020-2022. 

Damien Myers and Chris Mfume, CURE Advisory Board members, and Rodney Taylor, Core Team member, for taking a leadership role in raising funds for CURE’s Eddie and Sylvia Brown Challenge.

John Palinski, Core Team member and CURE philanthropy lead, for being elected vice chair of the Governor's Commission on Service and Volunteerism.

Clintonette Robinson, CURE Advisory Board member, on completing the Leadership Greenville, McKinsey Academy Management Accelerator program, and on receiving her second master’s degree in jurisprudence from the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. 

Elsie Stines, Core Team member, who has been working closely with Chancellor Jay Perman on the University System of Maryland’s engagement efforts in Maryland’s Pre-K-to-12 schools to ensure children are ready for college and are successful in completing college. Dr. Stines also is co-leading with Dr. Cynthia Baur, director of the Horwitz Center for Health Literacy, a University of Maryland, College Park/UMB faculty health literacy group that focuses on improving health literacy across all disciplines. Dr. Stines also will be presenting at the American Pediatric Surgical Nurses Association’s annual conference on “Racism as a Social Determinant of Health.”