Student News

Two UConn Students Win Udall Scholarships

Ethan Butler and Katherine Tsantiris
(left) Ethan Butler ’12 (ENG) (Photo: Christopher LaRosa); (right) Katherine Tsantiris ’12 (CANR) (Photo: Alan Huck)

By Nan Cooper and Karen A. Grava

Two UConn juniors with a passion for the environment have been selected to receive a Udall Foundation Scholarship. Ethan Butler, a chemical engineering major in the School of Engineering, and Katherine Tsantiris, an environmental science major in the College of Liberal Arts Sciences, are among 80 students nationwide to win the highly competitive scholarship.

Established by Congress in 1992, the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation celebrates the 30-year legacy of the Udall brothers, both of whom represented Arizona in the House of Representatives and championed environmental reform. The Udall scholarships, which carry an award of $5,000, are open to U.S. college students who intend to pursue careers in environmental subjects, Native American health care, or tribal public policy. Continue reading

Shining a Light on his Heritage

Jeremy Bui
Jeremy Bui, ’13 (BUS) (Photo: Derek Dudek)

By Lauren Lalancette

For most students, completing forms, such as the financial aid application for college, is a daunting task. But Jeremy Bui ’13 (BUS) coped with a mountain of paperwork before he even completed high school, when he and his two brothers established an educational foundation to benefit children in Vietnam.

Together with his twin Zachary ’13 (ENG) and older brother Timothy ’10 (CLAS), Jeremy established the Viet-Sun Foundation Inc., a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide educational opportunities through academic scholarships and other resources to impoverished village children in Vietnam, where his parents lived until they immigrated to the United States. Continue reading

UConn Students Win Goldwaters, Truman Scholarship

David Lindsay, Kathleen Carey, Colin Carlson; and Anna Green
Goldwater Scholarship winners (left) David Lindsay ’12, Kathleen Carey ’12, and Colin Carlson ’12, all juniors, and sophomore Anna Green ’13, who received an honorable mention.

By Christine Buckley and Sheila Foran

Four UConn students have been honored by two prestigious scholarship organizations: the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship Program and the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.

Juniors Colin Carlson and W. David Lindsay in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Kathleen Carey in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, also a junior, have been awarded Goldwater scholarships, which are given for academic merit in the sciences, engineering, mathematics, and computer science. Anna Green, a sophomore, received an honorable mention for the award. The scholarship grants $7,500 toward the completion of the recipient’s undergraduate degree. Continue reading

Nursing School Honors Dr. Jack Rowe

By Martha Miller and Jenni Saunders (CLAS ’11)

The School of Nursing has named Dr. John “Jack” W. Rowe as the recipient of its Josephine A. Dolan Award for Distinguished Service. Rowe, who is immediate past chairman of UConn’s Board of Trustees, was honored at the school’s annual Reflections of Excellence awards ceremony on Oct. 23.

The Dolan Award, named for the school’s first faculty member, is the nursing school’s highest recognition for distinguished service. Continue reading

Rowe Researcher: Fibroblast Growth Factor 2

John Zyzo conducting research in the lab
John Zyzo conducting research in the lab

Summer 2010: Fibroblast Growth Factor 2 Regulations of Microvascular Pericytes Differentiation into Osteoblast and Adipocyte

By John Zyzo and Ruth Washington, Ph.D., in collaboration with Marja Hurley, M.D.

Fibroblast Growth Factor 2 has been known to play a role in osteogenesis and adipogenesis of pericyte cells. Although vascular pericytes

can differentiate into osteoblast and adipocyte, the involvement of signaling pathways and molecular mechanisms were the main focus of our experiments. Continue reading

Rowe Researcher: Oral Health in Honduras

 

Patrick Cooper travels to Honduras to help with dental work.
Patrick Cooper travels to Honduras to help with dental work.

Summer 2010: Oral Health in Honduras: Comparing the Decayed, Missing, and Filled Teeth (DMF) Score to the Age, BMI, and Gender of the Honduran People

By Patrick Cooper and Merrill Singer, Ph.D.

I used my Rowe Research Award to conduct research in Honduras while on a medical missionary trip. I interviewed 600 participants to collect data comparing their oral health to their diet as well as to their geographic region, age, and gender.

Read Pat’s thesis.

Getting Students Interested in Science

Students in the UConn Summer Program

By M.A.C. Lynch

Thanks to an academic summer camp she attended while in high school, Gian Grant will be starting her freshman year at UConn this fall on an educational track that she hopes will take her all the way through medical school. What really made an impression on Grant, she says, was a 2009 summer field trip to the UConn Health Center, where a hematologist talked about her research. Grant decided then and there that pediatric hematology was her calling. Continue reading

Former Scholarship Student Now a Scholarship Donor

By Jane Gordon

Jack Rowe M.D. has had many titles in his life: professor at Harvard and Columbia, CEO and chairman of Aetna, CEO of Mount Sinai Medical Center and School of Medicine in New York City, chair of the Board of Trustees at the University of Connecticut, and one last title that actually came first: scholarship student.

“I only had the benefit of higher education because I had full academic scholarships to college,” he says. “My family otherwise would not have been able to send me to school.” Continue reading

Rowe Researcher: On-Line Certified Professional Food Manager Course

Summer 2009: The Evaluation of an On-line Certified Professional Food Manager Course to Reduce/Eliminate Food Born Illnesses in the Food Service Industry

By Wenhui Sun, Ellen Shanley M.B.A., R.D. and Colleen Thompson M.S., R.D., The University of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 76 million people suffer from foodborne illnesses each year in the United States. Food service is the second largest employer in the United States with a large number of immigrants and individuals having limited skills. The food service industry has an extremely high turnover. Continue reading