This award honors an undergraduate student in dentistry, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, or social work who submitted the most outstanding student abstract for the AGS Annual Scientific Meeting.
2026 Recipient: Kourtney Kanja
Kourtney Kanja is the AGS 2026 Clinician Student Research Award recipient for her submission, “Partnered Sexual Activity & Sexual Problems in Older Adults with Late-Life Functional Impairments: Findings from a Nationally Representative Survey”. Through this study, she found that, though older adults with functional impairments are less likely to engage in sexual activity, nearly half of men and women with functional impairments were engaging in partnered sexual activity and had high rates of specific sexual health problems. Kourtney’s work suggests clinicians should ask all older adults about sexual health, and to probe for specific problems that are more common in men and women with functional limitations. Kourtney is a second-year medical student at the University of Hawaii, and Vice-President of the GeriPal interest group. She also participated in the MSTAR program at UCSF in the summer of 2025.
Past Recipients of the Clinician Student Research Award
2026 Kourtney Kanja
2025 Gabrielle Katz
2024 Elizabeth Margaret Ann Kelly
2023 Matthew Cosmai
2022 Dallas Mindo-Panusis
2021 Linda H. Phung
2020 Vanessa Ho, MS
2019 Smrithi Sukumar
2018 Michael Liu
2017 Laura Hatchman
Jessica Rizzuto
2016 Margaret Puelle, BS
2015 Justin Yamamoto
2014 Julie Thai, MPH
Lucille Brunker
2013 Nerissa Duchin
Bianca Methvin
2012 Israel (Riley) Peña, Jr.
2011 Siobhan M. Case, BA, MS-II
2010 Cynthia So, BS, MSII
2009 Melissa M. Fish, MS-II
2008 Gina Fujikami, MSIV
2007 Priscilla Yee, MSIV