School of Biology graduate student Rachel Penczykowski and former Biology undergrads Nicole Fay and Meryl Mims have been awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. These prestigious awards provide three years of support for graduate research, including stipend, tuition and a travel allowance. Rachel's award supports her work, supervised by Meghan Duffy, on interactions between infectious diseases and nutrient cycling in aquatic ecosystems. Nicole graduated in 2008 and is now a graduate student in Molecular and Cell Biology and Chemical Biology at Berkeley. She is working on visualizing protein sorting in the immunological synapse, under the supervision of Jay Groves. At Tech, she conducted research with John Kirby, Cheng Zhu (BME) and Christine Payne (CHEM). Meryl graduated in 2007 and is now a graduate student at the University of Washington in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. She is supervised by Julian Olden, and is studying whether regulated flows increase genetic connectivity of fish populations below dams. At Tech, she completed her honors thesis work in Todd Streelman’s lab.

In addition, former Biology undergrad Mark Rutledge and current Biology undergrad Emily Weigel received Honorable Mention in the competition. Emily will start her graduate work at Michigan State University next fall, where she will work with Jenny Boughman on communication and sexual selection in sticklebacks. At Tech, Emily is doing an honors thesis with Terry Snell and is an editor for The Tower, Tech’s undergrad research journal. Mark is currently a graduate student in Molecular Biology at Princeton, supervised by James Broach and Ben Garcia. As an undergrad at Tech, he did research with John McDonald and King Jordan.

Congratulations to Emily, Mark, Meryl, Nicole, and Rachel!