Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM

NIH Grant Awarded to Hewett’s Lab Promotes Diversity in Research

Friday, October 19, 2018, By Kathleen Haley
Share
BioInspiredCollege of Arts and SciencesgrantResearch and CreativescholarshipsSTEMStudents

Diversity in science matters to breakthroughs.

When more scientists with varied backgrounds and experiences fill laboratories and collaborate on teams, outcomes in innovation and discovery surpass those of less diverse scientific groups, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

woman standing in lab

Sandra Hewett

Sandra Hewett, the Beverly Petterson Bishop Professor of Neuroscience and professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, believes in the power that diversity brings to research and recently built more capacity in her lab with an NIH grant for $39,078 to promote diversity.

The NIH’s Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research grant will support the work of Regina Catague ’18 for one year in Hewett’s lab. Catague, who graduated last May with degrees in biology and neuroscience, had worked in Hewett’s lab during her undergraduate years and completed her honors capstone, as a member of the Renée Crown University Honors Program, through her lab work.

The NIH awards the supplements to support research grants with additional funding to improve the diversity of the research workforce by recruiting and supporting students, postdoctorates and eligible investigators from groups underrepresented in health-related research.

woman looking in microscope

Regina Catague

Hewett is the principal investigator of a five-year, $1.7 million grant award from the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Her research looks at the origins of brain disorders, including epilepsy and stroke.

The diversity supplement grants are part of the NIH’s strategy to continue to develop the high quality of scientific human capital—built from a pool of scientists with diverse backgrounds, who bring different perspectives, creativity and individual enterprise to address complex problems.

Hewett calls the need for diversity in science “a national imperative.”

“It’s important that the sciences reflect our society,” Hewett says. “I fell in love with science and I want people who are drawn to the sciences to fully immerse themselves in the lab and their education without having to worry about money.”

Hewett is impressed with Catague’s work. “Regina is interested in how stress affects specific cells—astrocytes—the most populous cells in the brain,” Hewett says. Catague is looking at how a certain protein that is expressed by astrocytes is modified under certain internal or external stress conditions.

“Continuing in Dr. Hewett’s lab gives me the opportunity to expand on the project I began during my undergraduate years—currently, I am testing whether the adaptation of astrocytes to an external stressor can provide protection against subsequent exposure to lethal stress,” Catgue says. “I also am mentoring several undergraduates, paying it forward by teaching students various lab techniques and passing down other crucial knowledge that they will need to start their own projects. Finally, I am using my gap year to bolster skills that will prepare me for matriculation into a physician-scientist program.”

Catague is the fifth student in Hewett’s lab who has been supported with an NIH diversity supplement.

“This supplement helps promote a more intensive mentored scientific experience for persons who are from communities underrepresented in science,” Hewett says. “It is my hope that by providing an in-depth laboratory experience, these top-notch students will see science as a viable career option. Also, increasing gender and racial diversity in science can only strengthen the greater scientific workforce.”

  • Author

Kathleen Haley

  • Recent
  • Empowering Learners With Personalized Microcredentials, Stackable Badges
    Thursday, July 3, 2025, By Hope Alvarez
  • WISE Women’s Business Center Awarded Grant From Empire State Development, Celebrates Entrepreneur of the Year Award
    Thursday, July 3, 2025, By Dawn McWilliams
  • Rose Tardiff ’15: Sparking Innovation With Data, Mapping and More
    Thursday, July 3, 2025, By News Staff
  • Paulo De Miranda G’00 Received ‘Much More Than a Formal Education’ From Maxwell
    Thursday, July 3, 2025, By Jessica Youngman
  • Law Professor Receives 2025 Onondaga County NAACP Freedom Fund Award
    Thursday, July 3, 2025, By Robert Conrad

More In STEM

6 A&S Physicists Awarded Breakthrough Prize

Our universe is dominated by matter and contains hardly any antimatter, a notion which still perplexes top scientists researching at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The Big Bang created equal amounts of matter and antimatter, but now nearly everything—solid, liquid, gas or plasma—is…

Setting the Standard and Ensuring Justice

Everyone knows DNA plays a crucial role in solving crimes—but what happens when the evidence is of low quantity, degraded or comes from multiple individuals? One of the major challenges for forensic laboratories is interpreting this type of DNA data…

Student Innovations Shine at 2025 Invent@SU Presentations

Eight teams of engineering students presented designs for original devices to industry experts and investors at Invent@SU Final Presentations. This six-week summer program allows students to design, prototype and pitch their inventions to judges. During the program, students learn about…

WiSE Hosts the 2025 Norma Slepecky Memorial Lecture and Undergraduate Research Prize Award Ceremony

This spring, Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) held its annual Norma Slepecky Memorial Lecture and Award Ceremony. WiSE was honored to host distinguished guest speaker Joan-Emma Shea, who presented “Self-Assembly of the Tau Protein: Computational Insights Into Neurodegeneration.” Shea…

Endowed Professorship Recognizes Impact of a Professor, Mentor and Advisor

Bao-Ding “Bob” Cheng’s journey to Syracuse University in pursuit of graduate education in the 1960s was long and arduous. He didn’t have the means for air travel, so he voyaged more than 5,000 nautical miles by boat from his home…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.