News Release

DeFriese Award Winners Announced

January 24, 2003

The Institute on Aging is pleased to announce this year's winners of the Gordon H. Defriese Career Development in Aging Research Awards. These annual awards honor Dr. DeFriese's thirty-year distinguished career in the conduct and development of research to improve the quality of lives of older North Carolinians, and especially to his unwavering commitment to developing and supporting the careers of his colleagues. The awards are given to one junior faculty/staff member and one doctoral student from UNC Chapel Hill who demonstrate outstanding promise and a commitment to aging research.

Rebekah Smith, PhD, is this year's faculty/staff awardee. Dr. Smith is an NIA Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychology and will be joining the faculty there this Fall. She has been involved in numerous research projects related to memory performance in older adults, and since 2000, she has been the Principal Investigator of an NRSA-funded grant to study aging and prospective memory. She has also been actively involved in publishing in the cognitive psychology literature, serving as a reviewer for several psychology journals, and making numerous presentations at national psychology conferences. Dr. Smith received her PhD in cognitive psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Peter Reed is this year's doctoral student awardee. He is a student in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education of the School of Public Health. Mr. Reed is currently the project coordinator/research associate at the Program on Aging, Disability and Long Term Care working on a research project that will form the basis of his dissertation on the quality of care provided to residents with dementia in long-term care facilities. He has also been a research assistant for the Center on Minority Aging based at the Institute on Aging, a summer intern at the NIA Behavioral and Social Research Program, and a student intern in the Duke University Leadership in an Aging Society Internship Program.

Congratulations to both recipients! The award recognition ceremony will be held at a later date.

More information on the Gordon H. Defriese Career Development in Aging Research Awards, including past winners, is available from our Funding & Grants page.