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Our Impact: 2013 grantee Elizabeth Vargas Castellanos

GROUNDBREAKING RESEARCH BY ELIZABETH VARGAS CASTELLANOS

Elizabeth Vargas Castellanos is a woman with a mission: to help improve access to medicine and treatment for underserved populations in Colombia. And she is getting results.

A MMEG grant in 2013 allowed Elizabeth to complete her Master’s degree in Biological Science with Honors at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota. In 2017, with the aid of a government grant, she began her PhD there. Her thesis, based on the mutational profile in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, revealed a unique mutation in the Afro-Colombian women of the San Andres Islands (Caribbean Sea), in contrast to those found in the other two Afro-Colombian communities on the Pacific coast. Researchers have concluded this mutation is a result of different colonization of the San Andres islands, which are 470 miles north of the Colombian mainland and were initially settled by the British and Dutch and enslaved Africans from Jamaica, before the arrivalof Spanish colonizers.

Elizabeth’s research has aided in the treatment and prevention of breast and ovarian cancers in Afro-Colombian women, who suffer from extremely poor healthcare availability. Geneticists are now able to follow up with families of these patients and perform closer preventive check-ups, as well as offer treatments or interventions.

Elizabeth’s PhD required an internship abroad, which she fulfilled by spending five months at the DKFZ German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. Elizabeth says she benefitted greatly from her work in Heidelberg, and she graduated magna cum laude for academic excellence in 2021.

Elizabeth began her career at the Faculty of Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario. She then moved from teaching to medical research. She was appointed coordinator of the molecular biology laboratory at the Caimed Medical Research and Care Center, an organization dedicated to clinical research, information, and knowledge management to generate health solutions. Elizabeth was in charge of building a highly bio-safe molecular biology laboratory for Caimed in Colombia. Ninety percent of Caimed’s employees are women, but Elizabeth was the only woman and one of only two employees with a doctorate.

As a complement to her breast and ovarian cancer research, Elizabeth has helped create a registry of BRCA1/2 variants in Colombian patients with breast and ovarian cancer, to identify mutations in the regional population and complement similar registries in other countries.

Elizabeth has a passion for teaching. Her long-term goal was to work at a large cancer research facility while teaching doctoral students, and she is well on her way. Elizabeth is now doing a post-doctorate at Colombia’s National Cancer Institute, researching prostate cancer in Colombian patients. This is only the beginning of what Elizabeth hopes to accomplish.

Congratulations to Trinity Washington University Selection Committee

The Trinity Washington University Program falls outside the usual MMEG boundaries as it is restricted to a single institution and all Trinity students, including US citizens, are welcome to apply. The Program owes its existence to MMEG’s wish to acknowledge our home base: Washington DC.

MMEG is very fortunate to have eight experienced volunteers as members of this year’s Trinity Washington Selection Committee, who represent seven different nationalities and successful careers in international development, development economics, structured finance, sociology, nursing, editing and publication, and business management. In addition, some of them have been true pioneers of MMEG, assisting in the launch of several of our regional programs.

We thank MMEG’s Trinity Washington University Selection Committee for their time and effort in identifying two exceptional women who have already shown their dedication in working in, and for, their communities in the fields of mental health services and counseling. Our two successful grantees were selected from a strong field of candidates. 

The Committee’s rigorous selection process ensured that MMEG awards were allocated to women with a proven track record in working with women and children, furthering the strength and reach of MMEG’s mission. 

We are grateful to the Committee for all their work and applaud the completion of another successful grant cycle.

In collaboration with the World Bank’s Fragility, Conflict, and Violence Group and Gender Group.

A discussion by MMEG grantees Nohora Constanza Niño Vega (2016), Larisa Kasumagić-Kafedžic  (2006), and Hourie Tafech (2020) on gender, education, and development in forced displacement, will take place at 12:30pm on Thursday, May 25,2023, at the World Bank’s Main Complex, 1818 H St NW, Room 13-121. The talk will be moderated by Soukeyna Kane, Director of the World Bank’s Fragility, Conflict, and Violence Group, and Lucia Hanmer, Lead Economist of the World Bank’s Gender Group, which is also collaborating with MMEG on this event, will deliver closing remarks. 

 The panel will focus on how refugees, especially women and children, can learn and thrive, and how to battle violence and achieve peace through education. How do women and children cope when fleeing violence? How do children learn in refugee camps? How can peace be taught and violence fought? Come listen to these talented women share their expertise and experiences from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Malta, Mexico, and Venezuela, pose questions, offer your opinion, and leave wiser. 

The videoconference link will be live 15 minutes before the event starts at 12:30 EDT on Thursday, May 25, 2023.

Launch of a new MMEG program

In 2023 MMEG launched a new pilot program. The very first cycle of the France Program, through which MMEG awards grants to French-speaking women from developing countries studying in universities in France, was successfully completed by MMEG’s France Program Selection Committee.

At the end of a rigorous selection process that maintained MMEG’s standards for excellence, two exceptional women—one studying water engineering, hydrology and flood risk, and the other, information technology—were selected and awarded the first grants in the program. Congratulations to MMEG’s two new France Program grantees!

The selections were made possible through the dedicated and excellent work of the France Program Selection Committee, a seven-member team of hard-working volunteers. From five different countries and with varying professional backgrounds, Committee members brought to the selection their collective commitment to advancing women’s education, as well as their individual experiences and skills. Their diversity of knowledge and perspectives enriched the process.

We sincerely thank the France Program Selection Committee for brilliantly ushering in MMEG’s fifth and newest grant program, and for furthering MMEG’s mission to improve the lives of women and children by supporting the higher education of exceptional women from developing countries.

Kudos to MMEG South Africa Program Selection Committee

MMEG’S South Africa Program Selection Committee had another very successful cycle in 2023, presenting nine exceptional women who have been awarded our education grant.

 The South Africa Program Selection Committee’s members bring to the selection process not only their commitment to the work of promoting women’s higher education, but also the skill and experience they have acquired through their own professional fields: business, finance, public health, economics, law, agriculture, corporate banking, ethics, and food policy.

 The members’ diversity, with nine different nationalities and various places of residence, is remarkable, enriching the Committee’s awareness of South Africa’s context, and enhancing their ability to identify exceptional women from developing countries who are studying while working to improve the lives of women and children, therefore fulfilling MMEG’s mission.

We thank these hard-working volunteers, whose dedication to MMEG promotes a better world through our exceptional grantees.

Felicitations to MMEG Latin America Selection Committee

We thank MMEG’s Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Selection Committee for their dedication and hard work. They recently proudly presented as grantees 10 exceptional women that they had identified from a large pool of candidates.

MMEG LAC is very fortunate to have a diverse Selection Committee composed of volunteers from nine different nationalities and various professional backgrounds, who nevertheless share the same passion and common goal: to identify the extraordinary and exceptional women that our grantees represent.

The FY 23 LAC grantees are citizens of five different countries, currently studying at one of the program’s partner universities. Their fields of study are finance and medical imaging engineering, gender anthropology, gender studies, history, industrial engineering, law, management and development practices, rural development, and sociology. They are enrolled in master’s or PhD programs.

Throughout their careers, our grantees have been committed to working and volunteering in disadvantaged communities and with the vulnerable. With their study plans, they have manifested their dedication to uplift the lives of women and children in developing countries.

Year after year, our applicants’ increasingly diverse fields of study confirm our belief that women are strong leaders in their communities!

Queremos agradecer al Comité de Selección de América Latina y el Caribe (LAC) de MMEG por toda su dedicación y arduo trabajo: recientemente, presentaron con orgullo a 10 mujeres excepcionales que identificaron como beneficiarias entre un gran grupo de candidatas.

MMEG LAC tiene la fortuna de contar con un Comité de Selección compuesto por voluntarios de 9 nacionalidades diferentes y diversos antecedentes profesionales, que comparten la misma pasión con un objetivo común: identificar a las mujeres extraordinarias y excepcionales que representan nuestras beneficiarias.

Las beneficiarias para el año fiscal 23 en LAC son ciudadanas de cinco países diferentes, actualmente estudiando en una de las universidades participantes con el programa. Sus campos de estudio son Antropología de Género, Derecho, Desarrollo Rural, Estudios de Género, Finanzas e Ingeniería Especializada en Imágenes Médicas, Historia, Ingeniería Industrial, Prácticas de Gestión y Desarrollo, y Sociología. Se encuentran cursando programas de Maestría o Doctorado.

A lo largo de sus carreras, se han comprometido a trabajar y ser voluntarias en comunidades desfavorecidas y con personas vulnerables. Con sus planes de estudio, han manifestado su dedicación a mejorar las vidas de las mujeres y los niños de países en vías desarrollo. Año tras año, los campos de estudio cada vez más diversos de las candidatas confirman nuestra creencia de que las mujeres son líderes fuertes en sus comunidades!