Youthful Dr. Sala Senkayi smashes glass ceiling, wins top US science award

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By Samuel Muwanguzi

In Summary: She has smashed the glass ceiling. She is the first Ugandan-born American female environmentalist to win the top US-Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The honor was in recognition of her contribution to her innovative and generalizable research, professionalism, and transformative community outreach service. She was named last month by former President Barack Obama among 102 scientists and researchers from 13 federal departments and agencies to receive the PECASE award for 2017. Sala Nanyanzi Senkayi, Ph.D., works as an Environmental Scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 6 in Dallas, Texas.   She was born in Kampala, Uganda and moved to the U.S. with her parents when she was a toddler. She is the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Senkayi, long-time residents of Dallas, Texas. Havala Pye and Sala Senkayi were the only two young career scientists employed by the EPA to receive this year’s highest US-government honor. The top annual award , established by President Clinton in 1996, which comes with a cash prize, is bestowed upon young career scientists and engineers engaged in innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service through scientific leadership, and public education. Dr. Sala Senkayi, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the honor, momentarily slipped into some form of retreat to better come to terms with the limelight associated with such high-profile national recognition. Oftentimes, the magnitude of such honor would send even the most seasoned scientist into either episodes of self-serving biases or self-reflective humility. Sala chose the latter. Through her father, Dr. Abu Senkayi, also an environmentalist working with the same Environmental Protection Agency said that Sala was both humbled and overwhelmed by the top US government award. “She feels extremely humbled, honored, and never in a million years would she ever have expected to get this recognition from the President of the United States,” he said on behalf of his daughter. Although Dr. Abu Senkayi declined to disclose the cash prize that each awardee received, the EADM independently established that each honoree bagged a grant of $100,000 to further their research agendas. Now back into her element, with deep pockets holding a substantial research grant, the youthful Dr. Sala Senkayi has gone into overdrive. She is reportedly putting together a team to continue pursuing her research agenda and community outreach activities for the betterment of humanity. Moving forward, let the youthful Ugandan-born Sala Senkayi Ph.D. savor the largesse of the US-government, bask in the radiance of the  presidential honor, and light-up pathways for others to see.  Who should begrudge her?

Dallas, Texas—a youthful Ugandan-born American female environmentalist has won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government upon young professionals in the fields of science and engineering. Sala Nanyanzi Senkayi, Ph.D., who works as an Environmental Scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 6 in Dallas, Texas, was born in Kampala, Uganda and moved to the U.S. with her parents as a toddler. She is the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Senkayi, long-time residents of Dallas, Texas. The father, Dr. Abu Senkayi, is also the representative of the Kabaka of Buganda to the south west region of the USA covering the States of Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

Sala's father, Dr. Abu Senkayi, is also the representative of the Kabaka of Buganda to the south west region of the USA covering the States of Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

By all accounts, she has smashed the glass ceiling. She is the first Ugandan-born American female environmentalist to win the top US-Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The honor was in recognition of her contribution to innovative and generalizable research, professionalism, and transformative community outreach service. She was named last month by former President Barack Obama among 102 scientists and researchers from 13 federal departments and agencies to receive the PECASE award for 2017.

The top annual award , established by President Clinton in 1996, which comes with a cash prize, is bestowed upon young career scientists and engineers engaged in innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service through scientific leadership, and public education. The awards are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. For 2017, the Office of Science and Technology selected only two young career scientists; Havala Pye and Sala Senkayi from the EPA to receive the PECASE award, the highest US-government honor.

Dr. Sala Senkayi, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the honor, momentarily slipped into some form of retreat to better come to terms with the limelight associated with such high-profile national recognition. Oftentimes, the magnitude of such honor would send even the most seasoned scientist into either episodes of self-serving biases or self-reflective humility. Sala chose the latter. Through her father, Dr. Abu Senkayi, also an environmentalist working with the same Environmental Protection Agency in Dallas, Texas, said that Sala was both humbled and overwhelmed by the top US government award. “She feels extremely humbled, honored, and never in a million years would she ever have expected to get this recognition from the President of the United States,” he said on behalf of his daughter. “Sala feels that this award is a result of all the support from the family and various communities, including the Ugandan community, co-workers, and friends and neighbors,” Dr. Abu Senkayi said on behalf of his daughter.

Although Abu Senkayi, Ph.D. declined to disclose the cash prize that each awardee received, the EADM independently established that each honoree bagged a grant of $100,000 to further their research agendas. Now back into her element, with deep pockets holding a substantial research grant, the youthful Dr. Sala Senkayi has gone into overdrive. She is reportedly putting together a team to continue pursuing her research agenda and community outreach activities for the betterment of humanity. Moving forward, let the youthful Ugandan-born Sala Senkayi Ph.D. savor the largesse of the US-government, bask in the radiance of the  presidential honor, and light-up pathways for others to see.  Who should begrudge her? 

Dr. Sala Senkayi’s research agenda at the EPA focuses on, and draws heavily from her doctoral dissertation which examined whether there was a significant relationship between cancer incidences and proximity to airports in Texas between 1995 and 2005.  Using the Geographic information system (GIS) as  her methodology, she provided an innovative way of analyzing massive volumes of air emission data, collected by EPA over many years, to find relationships between airport emissions and cancer incidences recorded over a period of 10 years, by the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.  “Sala strongly believes that the approach and methodology she used to evaluate the Texas data could be replicated throughout the U.S,” her father, Dr. Abu Senkayi says.

She has since published and patented her dissertation and research findings in the Atmospheric Pollution Research Journal (2014).   Dr. Senkayi’s earlier work at Baylor College of Dentistry’s Biomedical Sciences Laboratories is also widely cited in several scholarly and professional articles. She plans to use the grant that comes with the PECASE award to pursue her innovative research agenda.

During the 8 years she has worked with the EPA as a full-time employee in addition to the one year when she served as an intern, Dr. Sala Senkayi’s professional and outreach activities have included community outreach efforts to talk to students about the importance of remaining in school; delivering motivational presentations to students from 4th grade to graduate level; and continuing to volunteer as a judge at local and state science fairs, a service she has gladly offered for more than 10 years. Dr. Sala Senkayi’s most exciting and gratifying activity at the EPA, however, is her pet-initiative, “EPA Converses with Students” Earth Day event, an outreach effort to provide information on STEM topics to students in EPA Region 6.  Over the years, EPA was able to partner with NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to enable thousands of students throughout the country to access EPA Converses with Students events. This initiative is highlighted in greater detail at the EPA Web site at:

https://www.epa.gov/students/epa-converses-students#2013

“Dr. Sala Senkayi plans to continue inspiring the youth and encouraging them to study science and their natural environment in addition to enhancing her numerous outreach activities,” Dr. Abu Senkayi assured.

Eleven days before he handed over power to president elect Donald Trump, President Obama, congratulated the 102 young scientists upon the attainment of the milestone along their independent research career paths. “I congratulate these outstanding scientists and engineers on their impactful work,” former President Obama said in a press release issued by the White House on January 9. “These innovators are working to help keep the United States on the cutting edge, showing that Federal investments in science lead to advancements that expand our knowledge of the world around us and contribute to our economy,” the former president said. The Presidential Early Career Awards highlight the key role that the Administration places in encouraging and accelerating American innovation to grow our economy and tackle our greatest challenges, the press release read in part. After President Obama passed the baton over to President Donald Trump, it now depends on the incumbent to determine a convenient date to host an official ceremony to recognize the 102 recipients of the 2017 award at the White House

President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump moments before the latter was sworn-in at the Capitol on the morning of Friday January 20, 2017.

The 102 recipients of the 2017  award are employed or funded by 13 federal departments and agencies including the Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of the Interior, Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, and the Intelligence Community. “These departments and agencies join together annually to nominate the most meritorious scientists and engineers whose early accomplishments show the greatest promise for assuring America’s preeminence in science and engineering and contributing to the awarding agencies' missions,” the press release from the Obama White House stated on January 9.

None other than Dr. Abu Senkayi, the father and fellow environmentalist could competently provide the background and context that prepared the youthful Sala Senkayi to emerge as one of the winners of the tightly competitive PECASE award from the millions of young scientists and engineers in the United States of America. “Sala’s hard work and dedication has paid off.  Looking back over the years, I can remember that Sala has always been hard working, innovative, imaginative and practical,” he says. “I remember her professor telling me that Sala was easy to supervise as a doctoral student because she always came up with good and innovative research suggestions and ideas yet many other students look to professors to tell them what to do but that was not the case with Sala,” he said.

As a parent and fellow environmentalist, Dr. Senkayi says he has observed, up close, Sala’s hard work, passion, and dedication, especially the effort she devoted to her Ph.D. program.  Dr. Abu Senkayi disclosed that for over four years, while pursuing her masters’ and doctoral studies, Sala worked full time at EPA, making countless trips between home, work, and school where all her research data were kept on a University computer, in the basement of the Engineering Department as a condition of working with Texas Department of Health and Human Services data. “But she defied all the odds and completed her doctorate in record time, “the father recalled. While Sala’s doctoral graduation ceremony was a wonderful event that the father will always treasure, getting the PECASE Award is even a greater achievement. “It is once in a lifetime achievement,” he told the EADM.

 

While the PECASE award overwhelmed Sala Senkayi, when the news about her honor was broken to the father, it left him both excited and restless. He told the EADM that on the morning of January 9, 2017, Sala wrote to him about the several e-mails she had received from the EPA office in Washington DC informing her that she had been selected to receive the PECASE Award. However, he disclosed that Sala had been warned not to share the news with anyone until the White House issued an official Press Release. “I became restless with excitement after getting the news but I could not tell anyone about it,” he says, adding: “But at about 3:00 PM the same day, when Sala sent me the website link to the White House Press Release announcing the awards, I was overwhelmed with joy,” he said.  He recalled that the first phone call he made was to his friend, Dr. Peter Kizza, a professor of Soil Physics at the University of Florida, Gainesville, to share with him the wonderful news. “Dr. Peter Kizza has been a good friend of mine for a very long time since our student days at Makerere University in Uganda and at the University of California at Davis; and has basically been part of our family ever since Sala was a little girl,” Dr. Senkayi stated.

With delightful nostalgia, Dr. Abu Senkayi places the wonderful news in perspective: “It makes me sit back and reflect on everything that has happened from the very day I took Sala to her pre-kindergarten school when I was a graduate student at the University of California at Davis,” he joyfully recalls. “Sala would not allow me to leave her at the school and I had to stay there with her the whole afternoon,” he delightfully reflects. However, while Dr. Abu Senkayi was pleasantly surprised at the award, with hindsight, he says that the level of professionalism, aspirations, and passion with which Sala accomplishes her tasks made her a deserving candidate.  “Hard work has been the key to all Sala’s achievements including this major milestone and my appeal to all young scientists and engineers, especially females, need to draw lessons from her inspiring experience, “ he counseled.

Tracing Sala’s determination, aspiration, and passion to her formative years, Dr. Abu Senkayi recalls: “During my Ph.D. graduation ceremony at the University of California at Davis, Sala, then a little girl, grabbed my graduation cap and put it on her head.  Perhaps that was a sign of her determination that one day she would also graduate with a Ph.D. Indeed, she earned her own Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Arlington many years later.” He added that “the fact that I, her father (in place of her professor), got the honor of hooding her, was such a gratifying experience.”

SALA SENKAYI’S BIO

Background: Sala Nanyanzi Senkayi was born in Kampala, Uganda and moved to the U.S. with her parents when she was a toddler. 

Education:  Sala graduated from Duncanville High School in Texas.  She obtained a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. She also obtained two BS degrees in Microbiology and Biology from the University of Texas at Arlington.  Later, she earned an MS (2010) and a Ph.D. (2012) degrees in Environmental and Earth Sciences from the same university.

Sala also obtained special training in GIS mapping and received a Graduate Certificate in Spatial Information Systems (2013). She is currently employed as an Environmental Scientist by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 6 in Dallas, Texas. 

Sala worked as an EPA intern for a year before she became a full time EPA employee and has been with the Agency for 8 years. Before joining EPA, Sala worked for Baylor College of Dentistry (BCD) supervising a Biomedical Science Lab, where she contributed to several papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Her achievements at EPA include winning a Regional Research Partnership Program (RRPP) grant that enabled her to work with EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) scientists at the Research Triangle Park (RTP) in North Carolina. This collaboration enabled her to gain knowledge about EPA’s environmental datasets related to air emissions. This collaboration with ORD scientists (and environmental epidemiologists at EPA Headquarters) enabled her to develop an environmental epidemiological methodology that was used to investigate (as part of her Ph.D. research project) relationships between pollutant emissions from airports, roads, railroads and industrial facilities and incidences of cancer, specifically leukemia, in children 9 years old and under. The cancer data used in this study were provided by the Texas Department of Health and Human Services and spanned a period of 10 years.

Sala’s professional experience at EPA includes working on environmental justice issues for several years, as a student worker.  Since becoming a full time EPA employee, Dr. Sala Senkayi has worked on issues related to TMDL and she is currently the Water Quality Division Quality Assurance (QA) Officer.  Her responsibilities as a QA Officer include providing training to EPA Region 6 States, Tribes and other groups within Region 6.  Sala has received two Regional EPA Awards for her contributions to several projects significant to Region 6, including a GIS project which investigated whether or not high rates of birth defects in several counties are a result of exposure to environmental pollutants.  Pioneering science and technology advances in research - Leukemia in children as related to airport emissions: 

Dr. Senkayi’s Ph.D. research project was unique because it involved evaluating massive volumes of air quality datasets collected, over many years, by EPA and relating these data to human health impacts, based on 10 years of cancer data.  GIS was a critical tool that helped in the evaluation of these massive volumes of data.  Use of the GIS tool helped to demonstrate the relationships between airport emissions and leukemia in children 9 years and under.

Dr. Senkayi’s research findings on impacts of airport pollutant emissions, specifically benzene, on children’s health have been published in the Atmospheric Pollution Research Journal1.

As worldwide demand for air travel increases, emissions from airports will likely also increase.  Airport emissions pose a concern due to lack of information about their quantity and impacts on human health and the environment. This research aimed to address the question of whether there is an association between childhood leukemia cases and airport emissions in Texas. Rather than looking at the impacts of a single airport on the surrounding community, this study looked at all airports in the state of Texas, and 2,134 incidences of childhood leukemia, state–wide, over a 10–year period.  This study demonstrated that there was a statistically significant relationship between incidence of leukemia in children and airport benzene emissions.  The methods utilized in this study can be adopted to investigate other diseases and their relationships with environmental pollutants.     

1. Senkayi, S.N., Sattler, M.L., Rowe, N., Chen, V.C.P., 2014. Investigation of an association between childhood leukemia incidences and airports in Texas. Atmospheric Pollution Research, doi: 10.5094/APR.2014.023.

Community service commitments as demonstrated through scientific leadership and education: 

Dr. Senkayi has been cited in several articles for her work at BCD’s Biomedical Sciences Laboratories, and has published (and patented) her dissertation and research findings in the Atmospheric Pollution Research Journal (2014). 

Dr. Sala Senkayi has presented her research work to peers at several conferences and other forums in the USA including one in 2014 at the Perot Museum of Nature & Science for Children’s Health Month. This event was opened by the Regional Administrator for Region 6, Mr. Ron Curry. In 2013, Dr. Sala Senkayi presented her work at two Symposiums; the XVth International Medical Geography Symposium, Health and Medical Geography: Highlights of Research, Training and Practice and at the Public Health's Wicked Problems: Can InfoVis Save Lives? Earlier, in 2012, she presented her research work at 6th International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology.

Dr Sala Senkayi’s outreach activities include several educational presentations to various student groups ranging from 4th graders to university graduates.  Her flagship initiative, the EPA Converses with Students Earth Day event, provides information on STEM topics to students in Region 6, a program that has blossomed and yielded several worthy projects. Taking a leading role in a long standing partnership between EPA and NASA’s Digital Learning Network (DLN) at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Dr. Senkayi has participated in the production of video broadcasts that have reached thousands of students around the USA per each hour event. In 2015, the event, which focused on Climate Change, was broadcast from the DLN at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Additionally, for the last 10 years, Dr. Sala Senkayi has served as a judge in local and state science fairs.

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