Grants or Gifts Relating to Women in Higher Education

Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.

The Center for Drug Research and Development at Howard University in Washington, D.C., received a three-year, $1,132,500 grant from the National Cancer Institute to conduct research on an innovative new treatment for breast cancer using nanotechnology.

Wellesley College, the highly rated liberal arts institution for women in Massachusetts, received a $1 million grant from the MasterCard Foundation to establish an endowed internship program to honor its outgoing board chair Lois Juliber. A 1971 graduate of Wellesley College, Juliber went on to become the chief operating officer of Colgate-Palmolive. Each year, seven students will be selected into the Lois Juliber International Internship program. The students will have internships with organizations in developing countries that deal with microfinance, education, or poverty alleviation.

Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., received a $30 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The grant will fund programs at the university’s Institute for Reproductive Health that seek to promote healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies among young women in the developing world. Rebecka Lundgren, director of the Institute for Reproductive Health says that “early pregnancy and child marriage are a reality for millions of young women worldwide, curtailing their educational and vocational opportunities, leading to poor sexual and reproductive health outcomes and contributing to the intergenerational cycle of poverty.” Dr. Lundgren is a graduate of Pitzer College in Claremont, California. She holds a master of public health degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in applied anthropology from the University of Maryland, College Park.