Miguel Coca-Prados, Ph.D., professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences, recently completed a professorship at Pfizer’s Groton laboratories as the 2006 Yale-Pfizer Global Discovery Visiting Professor. Now in its third year, the Visiting Professor Program is a 12-week sabbatical in which an outstanding Yale faculty member consults and conducts research on Pfizer’s campus in southeastern Connecticut. Coca-Prados studies the way in which gene mutations that cause glaucoma alter the normal function of the cells in the eye in which they are expressed.

Joshua A. Copel, M.D., professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences and pediatrics, was awarded the Dru Carlson Award for Research in Ultrasound and Genetics in February at the 27th annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM). The award was established in memory of Dru Carlson, M.D., an SMFM member known for her expertise in ultrasound and genetics research who died in 2003. Copel, also vice chair and director of Obstetric-Gynecological Ultrasound at Yale, is an authority on high-risk pregnancies, prenatal diagnosis, fetal surgery, amniocentesis and first trimester screening and chorionic villus sampling.

Sankar Ghosh, Ph.D., professor of immunobiology, molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and molecular, cellular and developmental biology, has received the Ranbaxy Research Award in basic research for the year 2005. The award is given by the Ranbaxy Science Foundation, a non-profit organization established by Ranbaxy Laboratories, India’s largest pharmaceutical company. The award was presented in March at the foundation’s 13th annual symposium in New Delhi. Ghosh studies the role of the regulatory protein NF-κB in immune responses and disease, and explores the therapeutic potential of inhibiting the protein.

Alan E. Kazdin, Ph.D., the John M. Musser Professor of Psychology, Child Psychiatry and at the Institute for Social and Policy Studies at Yale, has been named president of the American Psychological Association, the largest association of psychologists in the world. Kazdin, who also directs the Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic, began his leadership of the 150,000-member organization on January 1 as president-elect and will continue in 2008 as president. Kazdin is interested in advancing psychological science and service on a world stage in the areas of diversity, children and families and social policy.

Anthony Koleske, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and neurobiology, has been awarded the $500,000 Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association. The award supports midterm investigators with unusual promise, a record of accomplishments and a demonstrated commitment to cardiovascular or cerebrovascular science. The award will help fund Koleske’s research into how cells sense differences in their arterial environment and respond by redirecting their migration. Understanding these cues may lead to treatments to block the formation of atherosclerotic plaque.

Glenn C. Micalizio, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry, has been named an Eli Lilly Grantee for Organic Chemistry. The award includes a two-year unrestricted grant of $100,000, which Micalizio will use to continue his research on synthesis of complex biologically active organic molecules. He will also participate in the 13th biennial Lilly Grantee Symposium in March 2008 in Indianapolis. Micalizio’s research focuses on simplifying the process of molecular synthesis by developing new ways to form carbon–carbon bonds between molecules.