The UAB Graduate School recognized School of Health Professions' students Katie Cederberg and Kory Dees as recipients of the 2020 UAB Samuel B. Barker Award for Excellence in Graduate Studies. Overall they recognized five doctoral students and five master’s students across the university.

“The Barker Award,” named for UAB’s first graduate dean, Dr. Samuel Booth Barker, is given each spring to graduate students who represent the highest level of student achievement in a UAB graduate program.

Katie Cederberg, PhD in Rehabilitation Science – December 2020

Plans after graduation: A postdoctoral position in Sleep Science (she is currently interviewing for positions).

Biggest accomplishment as a graduate student: “I have co-authored a textbook chapter, published 22 peer-reviewed journal articles with five first-author manuscripts on the topic of RLS. In recognition of my research in RLS, I received The Trainee Merit-based Award from The Sleep Research Society in 2019 and a Trainee Travel Award from The Center for Exercise Medicine at The University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2017. This work has culminated in what I consider to be my biggest accomplishment to date: A fellowship award from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute Of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health [F31HD097903].”

Kory Dees, Master of Science in Biomedical and Health Sciences – Spring 2020

Plans after graduation: Attending medical school at UAB

Biggest accomplishment as a graduate student: “Getting accepted to medical school. It was a goal my wife and I have been working toward for a long time and to see our efforts finally pay off was pretty cool.”

Cederberg and Dees would have been recognized at the 2020 UAB Honors Convocation in April.