Person standing in front of a backdrop with repeated Society for Pediatric Research logos, holding an award certificate and wearing a conference lanyard at a Pediatric Academic Societies 2022 meeting.

House Officer Research Awards

The House Officer Research Award is presented annually by the Society for Pediatric Research® (SPR) to recognize outstanding research conducted by house officers. This award encourages early-career physicians to pursue careers in academic pediatrics.

Recipients are selected based on the quality of work presented in abstracts submitted to the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting.

This award must be applied for at the time of PAS abstract submission.

Award

One to three recipients are selected annually
Recipients will present their research at the upcoming PAS Meeting

Eligibility Criteria

Be a house officer or resident
Submit and present abstract at the PAS Meeting prior to the completion of residency
Complete the online application form and submit their abstract and supplemental materials by the abstract submission deadline
Applicant must describe their contribution to the project when asked to provide “brief description of the work performed”
First authorship on an abstract submitted to the PAS Meeting; the abstract must be accepted for presentation at the PAS Meeting to be considered
The recipient must present the study at the upcoming PAS Meeting

Applications that do not meet the conditions stated above will not be considered for the awards. The accuracy of the abstract and application is the applicants’ responsibility. Please proofread carefully before submitting. After submission, no corrections will be permitted. By submitting, you approve the accuracy of your abstract and application.

Current Recipients

My research focuses on identifying early neural markers of atypical brain development in high-risk infant populations, including those with congenital heart disease and preterm birth, with the goal of pinpointing critical windows when intervention can alter neurodevelopmental trajectories. My work integrates advanced fetal and neonatal neuroimaging, quantitative modeling of brain network dynamics, and longitudinal clinical assessment to characterize normative development and detect early divergence.

Srikanth Damera, MD, PhD

Children’s National Hospital

I am a pediatric resident at SUNY Upstate Medical University with a strong interest in translational research and in advancing our understanding of pediatric disease. Prior to starting residency, I had the opportunity to work with a pediatrics research team at Yale University – Deniz Lab investigating the role of DIP2A in early brain development using the frog Xenopus model system. My contributions included designing CRISPRs to target DIP2A for loss-of-function experiments, in situ analyses for early expressin analysis, and optical coherence tomography imaging to characterize the hallmarks of congenital hydrocephalus; aqueductal stenosis and ventriculomegaly. In this work we identified the role of DIP2A in early forebrain involvement and helped expand our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that lead congenital hydrocephalus. My overall goal is to continue to bridge the bench research to clinical diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic applications in pediatrics, with the goal of translating mechanistic insights into improved outcomes for children.

Deniz Elbizim, MD

SUNY Upstate Medical University

I am a 4th year Internal Medicine-Pediatrics resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital. In this project we analyzed the association between steatotic liver disease and insulin resistance in a prospective cohort of adolescents with the chronic disease of overweight and obesity.

Sarah Householder, MD

Yale-New Haven Hospital

2025 | Daniel Diaz-Gil, MD, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA
2025 | Eleanor Semmes, MD, PhD, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA
2025 | Sarah Z. Wang, MD, MPH, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA
2024 | Motunrayo Adu, MD, Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, New Haven, CT
2024 | Don Laing, MBChB, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
2024 | Jose Tascon Arcila, MD, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA
2023 | Tanima Arora, MD, MHS, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX
2023 | Mausma Bawa, MD, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA
2023 | Josh Kurtz, MD, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
2022 | Henna Boolchandani, MD, Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, New Haven, CT
2022 | Melissa Day, MD, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH
2022 | Lillian Juttukonda, MD, PhD, Boston Children’s Hospital C Medical Center, Boston, MA
2021 | Arthur Lee, MD, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
2021 | Mary Pilarz, MD, Ann C Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2021 | Mary Zabinski, MD, University of Massachusetts Medical School – Baystate Children’s Hospital, Springfield, MA
2020 | Michael Cookson, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO
2020 | Emman Dabaja, MD MPH, Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Detroit, MI
2020 | Philippa Rees, UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK
2019 | Emily A. Callan, MD, Medical College of Wisconsin, Wauwatosa, WI
2019 | Danielle Callaway, MD, Baylor College of Medicine, Waco, TX
2019 | Melisa Carrasco McCaul, MD PhD, Pediatric Neurology, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD
2018 | Joseph Alge, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital
2018 | Stephanie Davis-Rodriguez, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
2018 | Colm Travers, University of Alabama at Birmingham
2017 | Mihir R. Atreya, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH
2017 | Rebecca M. Hayes, Marshall University, Huntington, WV
2017 | Laura Malchodi, Walter Reed Pediatrics, Bethesda, MD
2016 | Stephanie Berdy, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD
2016 | Jonathan J. Edwards, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY
2016 | Laura E. Zastoupil, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO
2015 | Susanne C. Chock, Boston Children’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School,Boston, MA
2015 | Stacy L. Kern, Sanford School of Medicine, University of South Dakota, Sioux Falls, SD
2015 | Hojun Li, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA
2014 | Joshua J. Bear, University of California, San Francisco, CA
2014 | Kriti Puri, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Cincinnati, OH
2014 | Regina K. Rowe, Children’s Medical Center, Dallas, TX
2013 | Amy C. Blake, University of Colorado, Aurora, CO
2013 | Luis E. Lozada, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD
2013 | Hijab Zubairi, Baystate Children’s Hospital, Springfield, MA
2012 | Lakshmi Ganapathi, Children’s Hospital Boston, Boston, MA
2012 | John Kelleher, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
2012 | Paul Tannous, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Dallas, TX
2011 | Hitesh S. Deshmukh, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY
2011 | Joyce T. Hsu, Children’s Hospital Boston, MA
2011 | Augusto F. Schmidt, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH
2010 | Brian Becknell, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH
2010 | Enrica Fornaro, University of Padova, Italy
2010 | Anita K. McElroy, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
2009 | Alicia Avedis Demirjian, Children’s Hospital Boston, Boston Medical Center, Boston, MA
2009 | Laura McCullough, Children’s Hospital Boston, Boston, MA
2009 | Erin Kristin Zinkhan, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
2008 | Bridget Burshears, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
2008 | Georg Hansmann, UC San Francisco/Stanford University, San Francisco, CA
2008 | Sandra Lawrynowicz, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
2007 | Anja M. Hafkamp, Medisch Spectrum, Enschede, The Netherlands
2007 | David Hains, Columbus Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH
2007 | Daniel J. Moore, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
2006 | Keri Cohn, The Children’s Hospital, Philadelphia, PA
2006 | Shrena Patel, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
2006 | Sallie Permar, Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA
2005 | Avraham Beigelman, Soroka Medical Center, Ben-Gurion University, Beer- Sheva, Israel
2005 | Timothy A. Biela, University of Texas Health Sciences Center, San Antonia, TX
2005 | Cordula M. Wolf, Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
2004 | Carl E. Allen, Columbus Children’s Hospital, Columbus
2004 | Jessica Henderson-Boyd, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis
2004 | D. Williams Parsons, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, Baltimore
2003 | Jerry C. Cheng, Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA, Los Angeles
2003 | Hiroto Inaba, Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Troy
2003 | Carey Lumeng, Children’s Hospital C Boston Medical Center, Boston
2002 | Rossana Chang, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque
2002 | Benjamin Dekel, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel
2002 | Ru-Jeng Teng, University of Alabama, Birmingham
2001 | Cary R. Murphy, University of Iowa, Iowa City
2001 | Kimberly McCrudden, New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York
2001 | Maria P. Nguyen, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
2000 | Douglas D. Fraser, Kingston General Hospital, Ontario
2000 | Paul J. Galardy, Harvard Medical School, Boston
2000 | Matthew A. Saxonhouse, University of Florida, Gainesville
1999 | Ofer Levy, Children’s Hospital, Boston
1999 | Terrie Inder, Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston
1999 | Sandeep Batra, Children’s Medical Center, Stony Brook
1998 | Despina E. Varlam, State University of New York, Stony Brook
1997 | Patricia Ramsey, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston
1997 | Martha Sola, University of Florida, Gainesville
1997 | Elizabeth Yerkes, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville
1996 | Jeff Lukish, Children’s Hospital, Washington DC
1996 | Virginia Powell, University of Maryland, Baltimore
1996 | Scott Rosenfeld, Ohio State University, Columbus
1995 | Y. Anikster, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem
1995 | Jessica Klekamp, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville
1994 | Daniel J. Bonthius, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
1994 | Kimberly P. Marshall, Indiana University Medical Center, Indianapolis
1994 | Duncan T. Wilcox, SUNY at Buffalo, Buffalo
1993 | Scott Cameron, Children’s Hospital, Boston
1993 | H. L. Karamanouklan, SUNY at Buffalo, Buffalo
1992 | Clarisse Gervasio, Hutzel Hospital, Detroit
1992 | Amy J. North, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
1991 | Timothy P. Cripe, University of Iowa, Iowa City
1990 | David B. Haslam, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa
1990 | Nancy C. Andrews, Harvard Medical School, Boston
1989 | Michael Acarregui, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas