Pauletta and Denzel Washington will present the scholarships after a presentation by Keith L. Black, M.D., director of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program and the Division of Neurosurgery, which funds the program.

The invitation-only event is open to the media and will begin at 11 a.m. with opportunities for photos and interviews. The ceremony will begin at 11:40 a.m. with remarks from Veronique Wills, principal of the Foshay Learning Center.

Now in their third year, the awards provide $2,500 in monthly support for a graduate-level researcher and $2,000 per month for an undergraduate who have shown the desire, initiative and aptitude to make significant contributions in the sciences. Recipients work under the direction of respected physicians, neurosurgeons and scientists, and prepare a scientific abstract or paper to submit to a national neuroscience, cancer or neurosurgery organization.

This year's scholarship recipients are Freya Elena Marshall, of Sierra Madre, a medical student at Meharry Medical College in Nashville who received her undergraduate degree at the University of Southern California, and Christopher R. Urban, of Edinboro, Pa., a graduate of Pennsylvania State University who will start medical school this fall.

Both have accumulated research experience and glowing recommendations from professors that contributed to their selection. "I would rank her in the top 10 percent of the medical students I have taught here at Meharry Medical College for the past 10 years," wrote one of Marshall's professors, also noting that she "has had significantly more research experiences than most of her peers in first-year medical school. She
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Contact: Sandy Van
sandy@prpacific.com
800-880-2397
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
1-Jun-2006