Notable Student Accomplishments

Two College Scientists Win Goldwater Scholarships

Two third-year undergraduates were named Goldwater scholars by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation for their outstanding achievements in science. Erin Mowers, a double major in biology and chemistry, plans to continue doing research in cancer drug development until she graduates in 2009. She then hopes to enroll in the University’s Medical Scientist Training Program to pursue joint MD and PhD degrees. Donnie Bungum, a chemistry and biological chemistry double major, has worked on research in organometallic chemistry and participated in the P. C. Bio/Beckman Program, an interdisciplinary research seminar for undergraduates studying a range of molecular sciences.

Chicago Leads in Rhodes Scholarships

Three Chicago alumni received prestigious Rhodes scholarships to attend Oxford University. Isra Bhatty, AB’06 in economics and Near Eastern languages & civilizations, will pursue an MPhil in evidence-based social intervention, exploring issues of criminal and juvenile justice in the United Kingdom. Andrew Hammond, AB’07 in political science, will spend two years at Oxford working on a graduate degree in comparative social policy. Nadine Levin, AB’08, majored in biological sciences and minored in Spanish at Chicago and volunteered at a public hospital in Bolivia. The University of Chicago, with Stanford University, led the country for the most Rhodes scholarships in 2007.

Marshall Scholar Will Study Social Policy in UK

Alice Sverdlik, AB’06 in history, will attend the London School of Economics for two years on a Marshall scholarship. Sverdlik, who worked on housing rights in Chicago at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law after graduation, will pursue two graduate degrees, in social policy and in urbanization and development. She plans to focus on social and housing policy in urban slums in the developing world and wants to continue working on housing policy as a researcher with a nonprofit organization. Marshall scholarships fund two or three years of study at any university in the UK.

Churchill Scholarship Winner Will Study Drug Development

Matthew Biancalana, SB’08 in biological chemistry, will spend a year working on research that is a fusion of basic protein engineering and drug development at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. He expects to earn an MPhil degree there. At Chicago, Biancalana worked several years in the lab of Shohei Koide, Associate Professor in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, funded through the highly competitive Program in Physical and Chemical Biology for College students.

Churchill scholarships are awarded annually to students with exceptional academic achievements who have the potential to contribute to the fields of science, engineering, or mathematics.

Sefton to Pursue Zoology Studies as Gates Cambridge Scholar

Elizabeth Sefton, AB’07 in biology, was one of 45 Gates Cambridge scholars in 2008. The scholarship funds graduate study at the University of Cambridge. Sefton will work toward an MPhil degree in zoology through studies of the segmentation of arthropods—a group that holds 80 percent of living animals on Earth, including all insects and crustaceans. At Chicago, Sefton received a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research fellowship and wrote an undergraduate thesis on pharynx development in zebrafish.

Philosophy Major Named Beinecke Scholar

Third-year undergraduate Nathana O’Brien, a double major in philosophy and Germanic studies, received a 2008 Beinecke scholarship. The award, which provides a total of $34,000, is awarded annually to no more than 20 students nationwide for graduate study in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. O’Brien is the third College student in the last three years to receive the award.

Alumna Wins Highly Competitive Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship

Lisandra Rickards, AB’06 in economics, received a graduate scholarship from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. Following her graduation from Chicago, Rickards worked with Steven Levitt, the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and Director of the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory. She also worked directly with the minister of finance of her native Jamaica to help develop that country as an international financial center. She entered Harvard Business School in autumn 2008.

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s graduate scholarship program is considered one of the most competitive and generous, providing up to $50,000 per year for up to six years of study.

Medical Students Recognized for Public Service

Pritzker School of Medicine students received the first REMEDY (Recovered Medical Equipment for the Developing World) Program Award for outstanding service in medicine. The Yale School of Medicine, which administers the nationwide program, selected the Pritzker team from more than 600 programs nationwide. First-year medical students raised funds, purchased medical supplies, equipment, and medicines, and spent two weeks treating rural children in the Dominican Republic, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Campus Journalists Earn Kudos

The Chicago Maroon, the campus’s biweekly student newspaper, was named one of 10 Newspaper Pacemakers by the Associated Collegiate Press. Staff at the Washington Post evaluated the paper on layout, content, style, and depth of reporting. The award is the ACP’s highest honor in the four-year college, non-daily category.

For its work in 2006–07, the Chicago Weekly received a Silver Medalist Critique from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. This evaluation places the publication among the top college newspapers in the country. The alternative weekly focuses on local arts and culture and in-depth news stories.

Paleontology Prize for Graduate Student

Rebecca Terry, PhD’08, captured the 2007 Alfred Sherwood Romer Prize from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. The society awards the prize annually to a graduate student for outstanding PhD research based on an oral presentation at the society’s annual meeting. Terry specializes in taphonomy, the study of how physical and biological processes determine the quality of the fossil record. She inventories small mammals—both living specimens and their skeletal remains—in Nevada and Utah to assess the impact of climate change and humans on ecosystems over time. She is the sixth University student to receive the Romer Prize since 1993.

Chicago Ranks First for Peace Corps Volunteers

Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter visited campus to congratulate President Zimmer for the University’s ranking as the top Peace Corps school of 2008. Thirty-four alumni serve in Peace Corps programs internationally, and 654 alumni have joined its ranks since 1961—making Chicago the 59th all-time producer of Peace Corps volunteers. Chicago ranked first among colleges or universities with undergraduate enrollments less than 5,000.

Maroons Achieve on the Field and in the Classroom

Four teams of Maroons won University Athletic Association (UAA) championships, and three teams qualified for NCAA Division III postseason competition in 2007–08. Men’s and women’s basketball and men’s and women’s indoor track and field claimed conference titles. Women’s soccer and both basketball teams earned NCAA tournament appearances. Women’s basketball reached the sweet sixteen.

Sparked by five All-America performances—including two national second-place finishers—the women’s outdoor track and field team captured 10th place at theNCAA Division III Championship.

Three teams traveled overseas: The women’s soccer and volleyball teams toured Italy and China, respectively, prior to their regular seasons. The baseball team spent four days in Japan. Celebrating its 125th anniversary, Waseda University invited the baseball Maroons back to commemorate their 1910 visit with legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg.

Men’s track and field athlete Zach Rodgers, AB’08, was among 58 student-athletes nationwide to receive an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. The award brings $7,500 for study toward a graduate degree at a university or professional school. Rodgers holds a 3.96 grade point average as a triple major in biology, chemistry, and physics.

Basketball player Nate Hainje, AB’08, was named to the 2008 State Farm NCAADivision III All-America Second Team and was the 2008 UAA Player of the Year.

Mike Harriett, AB’08, was selected by the American Football Coaches Association to its Good Works Team, which recognizes young players committed to community service. Harriett coordinated volunteers for the Chicago Special Olympics Spring Games, tutored with the Friends of Washington Park program and two area elementary schools, and initiated and completed house improvement projects.