Two of our graduate student has received awards and honors recently. We are always proud of them.

Ms. Christina Hampton, graduate student in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has received two travel awards in a row. Her advisor is Prof. Facundo Fernandez. Christina first received an award to attend the 2007 ASMS Fall Workshop in Philadelphia.

She now will present her work at Pittcon 2008 after receiving a Pfizer travel award.

Congratulations, Christina!

Prashant Jain (El-Sayed group) has received the Graduate Student Gold Award of the Materials Research Society (MRS). The Gold award, which consists of a presentation plaque from the Society, $400, free registration for the MRS meeting, and a one-year membership of the MRS, was presented at an awards ceremony at the MRS meeting held in November 2007 in Boston. Prashant was one of six Gold winners determined from an award competition amongst 24 finalists selected from applicants from all over the world and a wide range of areas in materials research. These winners were considered on the basis of their current research excellence and future promise of continued success. Other winners were from the University of Groningen, University of California-Santa Cruz, Northwestern University, Johns Hopkins University, and Cornell University.

Prashant has been offered the Miller fellowship of the University of California, Berkeley for 2008-2011. This is a 3-year position that allows fellows to pursue independent postdoctoral research at Berkeley being mentored by Berkeley's outstanding faculty and making use of the magnificent facilities. The Miller Fellowship is a program aimed at bringing to Berkeley "a group of the world's most brilliant young scientists. Every year eight to ten fellows are selected from hundreds of nominations from all areas of science, on the basis of their academic achievement and the promise of their scientific research." He is planning to start in the Miller fellowship position following postdoctoral work at Harvard University.