The OU Graduate College is proud to celebrate Kylene Harold, a PhD candidate in Biochemistry, who has been awarded a highly competitive and independent NIH F31 fellowship in recognition of her outstanding research potential and academic excellence.

Kylene’s newly funded project explores a critical question in cardiovascular health: the connection between glucose utilization and electrical function in the heart, especially as it relates to the risk of fatal arrhythmias in people living with diabetes. Her work aims to shed light on an urgent public health challenge and contribute to the scientific foundation needed to improve patient outcomes.

Beyond advancing meaningful science, Kylene emphasizes how transformative the fellowship application process has been in her development as a researcher. “The process of learning to write a grant is an incredible and rewarding learning experience,” she shared. Her advice for fellow PhD candidates is simple but powerful: start early. “Both the writing and review processes take a considerable amount of time, so the earlier you can begin developing your ideas—and allow yourself to walk away from the grant and revisit it—the better.”

Please join us in congratulating Kylene on this remarkable achievement and in celebrating the impactful scholarship emerging from our OU Graduate College community.