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College of Science graduate students receive awards

By Vrushali Bokil

We are proud of our many College of Science graduate students who have received honors, scholarships and fellowships this year. Below we highlight some of these noteworthy students. They are among the many students to be honored at the College’s Graduate Student Appreciation Night event October 14, 2021.

College of Science Inclusive Excellence Award

Heather Masson-Forsythe, a graduate student in Biochemistry and Biophysics, received the Inclusive Excellence Award for her vital contributions to many equity, justice and outreach programs that have brought recognition not only to the biochemistry department but also to Oregon State. She is also a winner in the 13th annual Dance Your Ph.D. contest organized by Science Magazine. Read more about this award.

Harriet “Hattie” Redmond Award

The Harriet “Hattie” Redmond Award celebrates a member of the OSU community who works as an agent of change in service of racial justice and gender equity. This “Breaking Barriers” award is sponsored by the President’s Commission on the Status of Women (PCOSW), the Office of Institutional Diversity (OID), the Office of the Provost and OSU Athletics. This year’s awardee is Isabel Rodriguez from Physics.

Katherine S. McCarter Graduate Student Policy Award

Two integrative biology students from Oregon State University are among the 22 receiving a Katherine S. McCarter Graduate Student Policy Award, presented annually by the Ecological Society of America. Sara Hamilton and Zechariah Meunier are the OSU honorees. Read more about this award.

Larry Martin & O’Neill

The Martin-O’Neill Fellowship is awarded to a graduate student from any department in the College of Science whose research involves computational modeling. Christine Tataru (Microbiology) is this year’s winner.

2021 NSF GRFP

Integrative biology Ph.D. students Kristofer Bauer and Cheyenne Jarman and College of Science alumna Lorraine Waianuhea (Biology '18), were selected for the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP). They are among 10 Oregon State University students to receive the NSF GRFP award this year. Read more about Kristofer and Cheyenne's award.

Prestigious Diversity Fellowship

This award, formerly offered as the Diversity Advancement Fellowship, is a lucrative financial award that supports new graduate students with their transition to graduate education and celebrates their future contributions at OSU. This year, Angelina Zuelow in the integrative biology department received the fellowship. Read more about this award.

ARCS Foundation, Oregon Chapter Awards

ARCS (Achievement Rewards for College Scientists) Foundation, Oregon Chapter seeks to advance science and technology in the United States by providing financial awards to academically outstanding students who are U.S. citizens studying to complete Ph.D. degrees in science, engineering, mathematics, technology and medical research at Oregon Health & Science University, Oregon State University and the University of Oregon.

In 2021-2022, five incoming College of Science graduate students were awarded ARCS scholarships. Lucas Kolanz, in Physics, received the Beth Ray ARCS Foundation Scholar award, while ARCS awards were given to Hannah Stuwe (Biochemistry and Biophysics), Sunni Patton (Microbiology), Rand Burnette (Physics), and Erwin Cornelius (Mathematics).

Join us in celebrating our scholars at the ARCS annual (virtual) fundraising event on October 20, 2021 from 6 to 6:45 p.m.

WEI Family Private Foundation Awards

The Wei Family Private Foundation, a non-profit organization, was established to honor the memory of Dr. (Mrs.) Chung Kwai Lui Wei and Mr. Hsin Hsu Wei. Its purpose is to award scholarship grants to students of Chinese heritage with high academic credentials who are pursuing a degree in Science or Mathematics at Oregon State University or an Electrical Engineering graduate degree. In 2021-2022, the College of Science awarded three Wei Family scholarships to Jingtian Yu (Statistics), Mitchell Lee Kim-Fu (Chemistry), Jun Cai (Integrative Biology).

In addition, the College renewed 10 additional Wei scholarships to science graduate students (Jerry Sun, (Physics), Nachuan Zhang (Mathematics), Dunping Cao (Chemistry/Environmental, Molecular Toxicology), Yuan Gao (Physics), Guanyu Li (Physics), Chifan Leung (Mathematics), Peter Aidan Cowal (Mathematics), Yiming Sui (Chemistry), Jiawei Liu (Chemistry), Wanling Xie (Statistics)).

Provost's Distinguished Graduate Fellowships and Scholarships

The purpose of the Provost’s Distinguished Fellowship and Scholarship program is to support programs in the recruitment of Oregon State’s most meritorious graduate students. In 2021-2022, the College of Science was awarded $136K for recruiting new graduate students. Provost Scholarships were awarded to the following students:

  • Luke Bobay (Integrative Biology)
  • Prince Tuffour (Mathematics)
  • Trevor Reid (Physics)
  • Mans Mattsson (Physics)
  • Jackson Holm (Mathematics)
  • Moriah Longhurst (Biochemistry & Biophysics)
  • Matthew Vaughn (Integrative Biology)
  • Andrew Clifford (Chemistry)
  • Esteban Hernandez (Chemistry)
  • Dillon Stetler (Chemistry)
  • Ryan Loughran (Chemistry)
  • Ebony Stretch (Microbiology)
  • Ranasinghe Arachchilage Sachini Thakshila Abeysekara (Mathematics)
  • Jessica Robinson (Statistics)
  • Ngoc Ha (Statistics)

Two prestigious Provost Fellowships were awarded to Lucas Allen in Chemistry and Emily Palmer in Statistics.

Oregon Lottery Graduate Scholarships

The Graduate School awards Oregon Lottery Graduate Scholarships to domestic or international graduate students enrolled in an advanced degree program at Oregon State University. These scholarships will be awarded on the basis of academic merit and financial need. The College of Science had four students awarded scholarships this year:

  • Shumpei Maruyama (Integrative Biology)
  • Blaze Rightnowar (Chemistry)
  • Slade Sanderson (Mathematics)
  • Steven Tran (Chemistry)

Other Awards

The Dr. Hari S. & Dr. Renuka R. Sethi Graduate Scholarship Fund is a merit-based graduate scholarship program with preference given to domestic or international graduate students studying in the areas of fisheries science or human development. A Sethi Scholarship was awarded to Megan Wilson (Integrative Biology). In 2020, Megan was also awarded the College of Science Distinguished Service Award.

Dissertation Completion Awards support outstanding domestic or international doctoral students who are in the final stages of their dissertations. The intent of this award is to enable students to focus on research and writing with the goal of improving the quality of their work and expediting time to degree completion. A Dissertation Completion award was given to Michael Brawner (Integrative Biology).

The Southern Regional Education Boardʼs (SREB) Doctoral Scholar Program was established more than 20 years ago to increase the number of underrepresented scholars who earn the Ph.D. and to address the need for a more diverse college faculty. The SREB provides multiple layers of support, including, but not limited to financial assistance and research funding, but also career counseling, job postings and a scholar directory for networking and recruiting. The SREB works with states to improve public education at every level, from early childhood through doctoral education. An SREB award was given to Njesa Totty (Statistics).