Photo by Rashelle Lee
A Dartmouth graduate student has been awarded the
prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, and four
other students have received honorable mentions. Molecular and Cellular
Biology graduate student Crystal Piffath was honored with the award for her
project "Key signal integrators in the activation of the
metalloproteinase, ADAM17." Fellow students Ian Holloway
(Psychological and Brain Sciences), Kara Podkaminer (Engineering), Rachel
Ramirez (Earth Sciences), Annalies Vuong (Mathematics) were also honored by NSF
with an honorable mention.
Charles Barlowe, Dean of Graduate Studies has awarded
$500.00 to each student who received an honorable mention from the National
Science Foundation. “This is excellent news and a reflection of the high
caliber of our graduate community as a whole,” said Dean Barlowe.
Dartmouth graduate students continue to be competitive
in these awards year after year. Through their continued efforts to
encourage more students to apply, the Graduate Studies Office has offered
workshops designed to help students with their applications, and the recent
incentive of an award for students who receive an honorable
mention.
“The workshops are a two part process,” said Kerry
Landers, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs who has been coordinating the
workshops over the last two years. “In the first part we give an overview of
the NSF application. Then in the second session, students bring in their
own application essays for a complete workshop experience, getting feedback
from faculty and previous winners. It is a truly interactive way to
improve the quality of applications.”
Dean Barlowe and Kerry Landers have been active in
encouraging student applications. They are joined by NSF reviewer
Professor Joe Belbruno (Chemistry), and previous NSF winners William O’Neil,
LeAnn Tzeng, Leah Sommerville, Brian Pogue, Roger Sloboda, and Gideon
Caplovitz. Dartmouth students have benefited from the expertise of
previous winners and from Joe Belbruno’s added expertise in being a fellowship
reviewer.
~ Ian Isherwood
