Debora Kamin Mukaz, Ph.D., postdoctoral associate in medicine and a researcher in the Laboratory for Clinical Biochemistry Research, has received a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant from the American Heart Association. The grant will support her research in the REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) national longitudinal cohort study, which has followed 30,239 Black and white adults since 2003 in an effort to determine why Black Americans and those living in the Southeast have higher stroke mortality. Dr. Kamin Mukaz will 1) comprehensively study the effects of five dimensions of residential segregation (evenness, exposure, concentration, centralization, and clustering) on the risk developing hypertension during follow up; and 2) identify associations of these dimensions of residential segregation with thrombo-inflammatory biomarkers related to risk of hypertension—factor IX, D-dimer, interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, interferon gamma, and tumor necrosis factor alpha. Her hope is that these “findings will increase knowledge about inequities in cardiovascular health and allow for design of programs to decrease racial disparities in hypertension.”