PhD Student Receives EPA Fellowship.

Rebecca Laws, a PhD candidate in the Department of Environmental Health, has received a Science to Achieve Results (STAR) graduate fellowship from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study the ongoing epidemic of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in Western Nicaragua.

Laws’ current research involves investigating potential environmental and occupational causes of CKD, a disease of unknown etiology that affects Nicaraguan laborers, in particular sugarcane workers. As part of the fellowship, she will evaluate repeated measures of biomarkers of kidney injury and CKD among sugarcane workers; determine whether there is evidence of kidney injury and CKD among miners, construction workers, and stevedores who have never worked in the sugarcane industry; and characterize biomarkers of exposure to nephrotoxic heavy metals and examine their association with biomarkers of kidney damage. The two-year project will run through September 2016.

Laws is currently a fourth-year PhD candidate specializing in environmental epidemiology and exposure assessment. She previously received her MPH from SPH and a BS in biology from Duke University.

The STAR graduate fellowship program supports the academic and fieldwork of both masters and doctoral candidates in environmental studies. Benefits include tuition support and a monthly stipend, as well as an annual expense allowance. STAR fellowships are intended to help defray the ever-increasing costs associated with studies leading to advanced degrees in environmental sciences.