December closed 2024 out on a high note at the Foundation!

Down at Southern Blues Equestrian Center, the BridgeUP GiddyUP Team celebrated the holiday season by decorating their stable Christmas tree in true HGB fashion. They named the tree Helen in honor of none other than Helen Gurley Brown. “She is named after our most glorious, fabulous, and fierce fairy godmother.” Additionally, BUGUP’s top 9 riders volunteered at the EXEL December show in a variety of positions, including jump crew, office support staff, liaison with competition officials, and official announcers for the show jumping arena. All riders made an incredibly positive impression on show staff and exhibitors alike, gaining valuable experience for their upcoming United States Equestrian Society production in April.

At BridgeUP + OUT, Scholars ended their semester with a wonderful holiday celebration to commemorate the hard work they put in all Fall. After their much-needed break and rest, Senior Scholars will hear back from college applications, while the rest of the Scholars begin finalizing their various summer plans and activities! Additionally, two alumni from the class of 2024 came back to visit the program from Lehman College — Kevin S. and Maribella B. They shared with staff how their first semester went and discussed their overall adjustment to college life. 

Within our Empowering Women Universe, the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle ended on an extremely positive note. At the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, they are looking ahead to the second half of their 2024/25 season, which will consist of entirely new work! They are co-producing the world premiere of HGB’s Ventures funded BUST by Zora Howard along with the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Additionally, former BOLD Associate Artistic Director at the WP Theater in New York, Tamilla Woodard, is finishing her tenure as the Chair of the Acting Program at the Yale School of Drama. We are so proud of you, Tamilla!

Unsurprisingly, the Dana-Farber Presidential Initiative ended the year powerfully, with three of our Helen Fellows and Trailblazers engaging in presentations and publications! Helen Fellow Lin Han, PhD, gave an oral presentation titled “Rings and loops in the development of MDS” at the Broad Institute’s Cancer Program Retreat in Newport, Rhode Island. Additionally, Helen Fellow Lydia Chevalier, PhD, gave presentations on the l health of young adult cancer survivors at Dana-Farber’s Blum Center for Patients and Families and at Perini Survivors’ Center. Lydia also submitted a revision of her K08 application to the National Cancer Institute to continue the next steps in her HGB-funded project.

Helen Trailblazer Mimi Bandopadhayhay, MBBS, PhD, released a preprint of her research paper, which is currently under review at Nature Communications. This manuscript details the science behind her Helen Trailblazer project. Mimi also presented this work at the Society of Neuro-Oncology Annual Scientific Meeting in Houston, Texas. Lastly, Helen Trailblazer Xin Zhou, PhD, was invited to give research presentations on her TransTAC degrader technology at the following upcoming conferences: the 13th Annual Symposium of the Center for Targeted Therapeutics and Translational Nanomedicine (CT3N) at Penn; the AACR Special Conference in Cancer Research: Optimizing Therapeutic Efficacy and Tolerability Through Cancer Chemistry in Toronto; and the 2024 Antibody Engineering & Therapeutics Conference in San Diego, California.

At Rutgers University-Newark, BOLD Scholars had the privilege of meeting with their program lead, Vice Chancellor Latoya Battle-Brown, for an insightful professional development session. Scholars asked engaging questions about her career journey, her 25+ years working in higher education, and her personal insights as a leader in the university setting. This session provided an opportunity for students to connect with Latoya on a more personal level. They walked away feeling inspired after gaining such valuable advice for their paths. Additionally, Savayra R., BOLD Senior, was nominated and selected to serve as a member of the Rutgers Presidential Search Committee. As the only undergraduate student and Rutgers-Newark student on the committee, she is proud to represent the entire Rutgers community.

Lastly, within our Empowering Innovation vertical, one of the current Magic Grants at the Brown Institute for Media Innovation Improper Conduct, is making significant strides in leveraging artificial intelligence to track prosecutorial misconduct in Ohio. This project aims to develop AI tools based on large language models to automate and update a public database, providing an invaluable resource for watchdog journalists, legal researchers, among others. They have successfully hired a cohort of law students who are working directly with investigative journalism students to advance the classifier used to train the machine learning model. Congratulations to Improper Conduct!

We look forward to all that is to come in the new year, here’s to dreaming big!