Denzel Washington's hometown hosts awarding of scholarships bearing Washington family name

This year's Pauletta and Denzel Washington Family Scholar in Neuroscience Awards will be presented in Mount Vernon, NY

LOS ANGELES (April 29, 2008) – Pauletta and Denzel Washington will present two research scholarships Friday, May 2, at Mount Vernon High School in Denzel’s hometown of Mount Vernon, N.Y. The ceremony will begin at 10 a.m.

The Pauletta and Denzel Washington Family Scholar in Neuroscience Awards have been given annually since 2004 by the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The program provides $2,500 in monthly support for a graduate-level researcher and $2,000 per month for an undergraduate. Recipients work during the summer months under the direction of renowned physicians, neurosurgeons and scientists, and prepare a scientific abstract or paper to submit to a national neuroscience, cancer or neurosurgery organization.

In addition to lending their name to the scholarships, the Washingtons take an active role in the program, meeting with applicants and announcing the annual awards. The scholarships are awarded in a different city each year to increase awareness of neuroscience research and encourage students from many geographic locations to apply. The Washingtons said they hope the Mount Vernon setting will persuade students from Denzel’s hometown to consider careers in the sciences because they offer the potential to change the world.

Keith L. Black, M.D., chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai, will speak and introduce the Washingtons, strong supporters of Cedars-Sinai’s neuroscience research program. Mount Vernon Mayor Clinton Young Jr. and Superintendent of Schools W.L. “Tony” Sawyer, Ed.D., also will speak.

Other speakers include Arthur J. Ochoa, Esq., senior vice president for Community Relations at Cedars-Sinai, and Dwain Morris-Irvin, Ph.D., a neural stem cell research scientist at Cedars-Sinai’s Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute. Morris-Irvin, who also is from the Mount Vernon area, conducts research to identify new treatments for brain tumors and neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.

This year’s scholarship recipients are Lindsey B. Ross, a resident of Los Angeles, in the graduate student category, and Debi M. Thomas, of La Palma and Davis, Calif., undergraduate. Ross is in her first year of medical school at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Thomas is in her junior year at the University of California, Davis, studying neurobiology, physiology and behavior.