Congratulations to Robert Strait, MD, Endocrinology/Diabetes fellow, who was recently awarded an Endocrine Fellows Foundation (EFF) Research Grant in the amount of $5,000, funded by the EFF. This 1-year award, for his project entitled, “HPA axis activation by psychological stress as an independent risk factor for metabolic syndrome components in children”, will shed additional light on the relationship between chronic stress, alterations in body composition, and laboratory markers of metabolic syndrome in children, and will for the first time in children link these findings to assessments of psychological stress. These data will add to understanding about predictive factors for metabolic disease, and will provide a foundation of preliminary data for prospective studies examining mindfulness training as an intervention to reduce chronic stress and metabolic morbidity in obese children.