Each recipient will receive $5,000 to support their participation in entrepreneurism and business training opportunities. The award is funded by The Lawson and Gisele Rankin Endowment and is currently matched with an annual gift.
The 2024 recipients of this award are Kieran O'Reilly and Xiangbo Yang, PhD.
Kieran O'Reilly is a second-year Pharm.D. candidate at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. About receiving the award, O'Reilly stated, “I deeply appreciate the opportunity provided by the Rankin Innovator Acceleration Award, which enables me to explore facets of machine learning and other interests beyond the scope of my PharmD curriculum. I am looking forward to learning, understanding, and partaking in the current wave of innovation within pharmacy, aiming to enhance both our profession and the lives of our patients.”
Xiangbo Yang is a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Yang mentioned, “It is a great honor to receive the 2024 Rankin Innovator Acceleration Award. This award provides an impressive opportunity for entrepreneurial professional development and will likely mark the beginning of my career in a startup, transitioning from a researcher in the lab to an operator in the industry.”
