Tag: Awards & Honors
Christopher Hendon selected as finalist for 2020 Dream Chemistry Award
Mike Haley receives George A. Olah Award in Hydrocarbon or Petroleum Chemistry
American Chemical Society has selected UO Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty Michael Haley for the the George A. Olah Award in Hydrocarbon or Petroleum Chemistry. The ACS national award recipients were announced in the August 13th issue of C&EN.
The George A. Olah Award in Hydrocarbon or Petroleum Chemistry is awarded to one individual each year in recognition of outstanding, highly original research achievements in hydrocarbon or petroleum chemistry. Professor Haley will be honored at an awards ceremony on Tuesday, March 23, 2021, in conjunction with the ACS 2021 Spring National Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.
Biochemist Brad Nolen awarded $2.88 million to study the cytoskeleton
Eight UO students receive prestigious NSF graduate fellowship – Six from Chemistry Program
4 PhD Students and 3 Undergrads win NSF GRFP in Chemistry
Four PhD students and three undergraduates in the UO department of Chemistry and Biochemistry have been selected by the National Science Foundation for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP):
The [GRFP] program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions. Fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees (paid to the institution), opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose. As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the GRFP has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers.
Our 2020 recipients:
PhD
Alison Chang
Marc Foster
Khoa Le
James May
Undergraduates
Madi Scott
Makenna Pennel
Casey Bisted – 2019 grad, now in PhD program at UW
Our Honorable Mentions:
PhD
Julia Fehr
Grace Kuhl
Gabrielle Warren
Undergraduate
Dylan Bardgett
This is our department’s highest number of GRFP fellowship recipients and honorable mentions to date. Special thanks to faculty members Shannon Boetcher, Mike Pluth, Amanda Cook, Julia Widom, and Chris Hendon for the great job they’ve done teaching the CH 401/601 Fellowship Application Skills workshop.
Alumna Hanna Thomsen, Class of 2013, Receives Doctoral Thesis Award
Jim Prell among recipients of OHSU-UO Collaborative Seed Grant
Emma Mullen Receives ESPRIT Scholarship
Biochemistry major Emma Mullen is one of four undergraduate science majors awarded a 2019 University of Oregon ESPRIT Scholarship (Experiencing Science Practices through Research to Inspire Teaching). The UO ESPRIT Scholarships Program is funded by the National Science Foundation through the NSF’s Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. Recipients each receive $35,000 in support that includes a two-year scholarship for their senior undergraduate year and the UOTeach Program, a highly focused one-year master’s level teacher licensure program designed to produce highly qualified teachers with advanced instructional and classroom expertise. The ESPRIT Scholarships Program is a collaborative effort between the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Education involving STEM CORE, the Center for STEM Careers through Outreach, Research, and Education, and the Department of Education Studies.
Now in her senior year, Emma says she has always been interested in teaching. In high school, she found herself in the role of informal tutor for a group of classmates, and enjoyed being a part of the “ah-ha!” moment when one of her peers grasped a tricky concept that had eluded them. As a SuperChem Peer Learning Assistant at the UO, Emma continues to build her skills as an educator.
Emma took her first step on the ESPRIT pathway by participating in an ESPRIT-sponsored summer research experience at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California this past summer. During her eight weeks in the Biosciences & Biotechnology Division, she worked on optimizing the crystallization of nanolipoprotein particles (NLPs).This furthered the development of NLPs as a platform for vaccine delivery and for x-ray crystallographic characterization of membrane proteins.
Once she had completed her summer research experience, Emma became eligible to apply for the ESPRIT Scholarship to the UOTeach Program and was selected for the award. Her acceptance was celebrated during a signing ceremony for the ESPRIT recipients at the College of Education on Thursday, November 21st. Prof. Michael Pluth, in whose lab Emma is currently doing undergraduate research, presented her award.
Emma plans to pursue the Secondary Education track in her master’s studies, in preparation to teach high school chemistry. She appreciates the opportunity teaching provides to share a subject that she is passionate about. Learning how things work at a fundamental, nittty-gritty level has always fascinated her and, she explains, “Chemistry does that. It changes the way you look at things when you begin to think about the world around you on a molecular level. I’m excited to share that.”
After graduating from UOTeach, ESPRIT Scholars go on to teach in a high-need school district for four years. This could take Emma anywhere in Oregon, but she hopes to eventually end up somewhere near her hometown of Portland.
– by Leah O’Brien
Eric Beyerle named John Keana Fellow for 2019-20
Eric Beyerle, a graduate student in Guenza Lab, has been selected as the next John Keana Graduate Student Fellow.
The fellowship was established in 2017 in honor of Professor Emeritus John Keana, and provides annual fellowship awards to graduate students studying in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Oregon. The award may be used to assist with defraying the academic costs associated with attending the university such as tuition, fees, books, miscellaneous supplies, research and living expenses.
The first John Keana Graduate Student Fellowship was awarded in 2018-19 to Matthew Cerda in the Pluth Lab.