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2002 Minority Summer
Fellowship Winners |
| The Minority Science Program is aimed at increasing
retention of minority undergraduates in the sciences through
experiential education. The Fellowship awards provide a stipend
for the student and expense money for the sponsoring professor for an
individually designed research project in the professor's lab.
This is a tried and true path to guide students toward a science
career. Eighty-five percent of undergraduate recipients of this
fellowship have continued on to graduate school. This year, through the generosity of the following
companies, we were able to award four fellowships of $4,000 each.
Monsanto supported a full fellowship; Merck donated $3,500;
Kimberly-Clark funded $4,000; Pfizer donated $1,000; Procter &
Gamble, and Sigma-Aldrich each contributed $500.00. We are
grateful for the generous donations from these companies.
We are pleased to present the 2002 Minority Summer
Fellowship Award winners: |
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Pictured, left to right Rosanne Perez, Luz Rojas and
Ijeoma Asota
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Joe Castro
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| Rosanne Perez is a Biology student working under the tutelage
of Dr. Tzumin Lee in the Department of Cell and Structural
Biology. Professor Lee writes, "No doubt, Rosanne is one of
the best undergraduate researchers one can recruit, based on my past
experience in supervising several undergraduates in both Stanford
University and the University of Illinois campus." She plans to attend graduate
school. Her research project involves the characterization of a
mutation that affects the extension of MB axons in Drosophila brain.
Her fellowship was partially funded by Kimberly-Clark. |
| Luz Rojas has joined the lab of Dr. Jeffrey Moore in the
Chemistry Department this summer to work on the self-healing polymer
project. She works on the chemical aspect of the polymerization
process by testing new structural polymeric material. Professor
Moore recommended Luz based on her excellent work in his Organic
Chemistry course. She plans to continue her education through
post-graduate work. Her fellowship was partially funded by
Kimberly-Clark. |
| Ijeoma Asota is a senior in Microbiology and is working in the
laboratory of Dr. Brenda Wilson. Professor Wilson states, "Ijeoma
is bright, insightful, and motivated...I think she has great potential
for success as a scientist." She is studying the structure
and function of purified Escherichia coli cytotoxic necrotizing
factors (protein toxins). Part of her work will be to produce a
pure recombinant toxin protein to be further analyzed. Her
fellowship was funded by Merck. |
| Joseph Castro, a senior, is working with Dr.
Daniel Bush in the department of Plant Biology. Professor Bush
writes, "Indeed, he (Joseph) has been such a quick learner that in
many ways he operates at the level of a first year graduate
student." Joe is investigating the nitrogen deficiency
response of Arabidopsis by using a genetic approach to identify
the genes responsible for the morphological changes in the plant.
He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in science. His fellowship was funded
by Monsanto. |
University of Illinois Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center Placement Office
Kathleen Brinkmann, Placement Director
108 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 333-1378 FAX: (217) 244-0466
Email: brinkman@illinois.edu |
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