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Dr. Sabra Klein '92 (photo by Keith Weller/JHSPH) |
Dr. Sabra Klein ’92 and her husband, Drew Maloney ’91, recently established the Sabra Klein Maloney ’92 Fellowship Program for Women in the Sciences, which is designed to support students who are interested in research opportunities in the lab sciences.
“My experiences at Randolph-Macon were wonderful,” she says. “I grew and developed into a productive researcher who is committed to science and education. My husband and I are blessed to be able to make this gift to the college. I would like to provide other young women with the opportunity to conduct research and be competitive applicants to top graduate programs around the country.”
Randolph-Macon College President Robert R. Lindgren is thrilled that students will be able to benefit from such a generous gift. “Sabra’s and Drew’s generosity celebrate the best of what R-MC has to offer, and through their kindness, women interested in lab sciences will be able to expand their educational opportunities. I join the Randolph-Macon College community in thanking Sabra and Drew for initiating this remarkable fellowship program.”
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Klein, a Fairfax County, Virginia native, knew she wanted to major in psychology when she began her career at R-MC, but her educational route was fine-tuned with the help of one of her professors. “I thought my interests were in clinical psychology,” she says. “It was after I took Physiological Psychology and Comparative Psychology with Kelly Lambert that I began to reconsider my career path and interests.”
The research Klein conducted with Lambert also helped shape her future. “Kelly helped me start my graduate school path, which led me to the Biological Psychology program at the University of Georgia,” she says. “I then transferred to the Behavioral Neuroscience program at Johns Hopkins and completed my graduate education.”
Lambert, who chairs R-MC’s psychology department, is excited that Klein and her husband are supporting young women in their educational pursuits. “Sabra was one of my first research students at R-MC—it was wonderful watching her focus her interests in the area of biopsychology and then transform into such an accomplished and respected scientist,” says Lambert. “I’ve had the privilege of watching her every step of the way...somewhere along the way she became a valued colleague and started giving me research advice."
Lambert continues, “She maximized her opportunities at R-MC to lay the groundwork for a successful and meaningful career as a scientist. This generous gift will provide a similar opportunity for exceptional R-MC women.” Lambert is also the Macon and Joan Brock Professor of Psychology and co-director of R-MC’s undergraduate research office and oversees the Schapiro Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program.
Klein earned her M.S. from the University of Georgia in biological psychology and her Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University. She did postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, where she is now an assistant professor. She is a leading expert on sex differences in susceptibility to infection and currently has over 60 peer-reviewed publications in journals. She has authored several book chapters and edited a book titled Sex Hormones and Immunity to Infection. Her research has been featured in
The Wall Street Journal,
The Baltimore Sun, and
Women’s Health magazine and she co-authored an op-ed in the
New York Times pertaining to sex differences in the dosing of the flu vaccine. Klein’s research examines the impact of hormones on immune responses to viruses. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Science Foundation and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
For more information on R-MC’s undergraduate research program, visit:
http://www.rmc.edu/why-rmc/programs/surf.aspx To learn more about R-MC’s psychology department, visit:
http://www.rmc.edu/degrees/psychology.aspx For more information about the breadth of programs and opportunities available at Randolph-Macon, contact our Admissions Office at (800) 888-1762 or at admissions@rmc.edu