Provost Celebrates Students for Top Honors
Dozens earn national or BU-sponsored scholarships, awards
On the Saturday of Parents’ Weekend, University Provost Jean Morrison recognized 38 students as the winners of prestigious national and University-wide awards during a ceremony and reception in the Castle.
“It is among our great privileges as educators to recognize the outstanding work our students are performing both in their classrooms and communities,” Morrison says. “From academic achievement to all-around excellence in coursework and public service, these awards each year highlight the caliber of current and future difference-makers we have at Boston University. These honors are well earned, and we are proud to help support these students’ success.”
The Dean Elsbeth Melville Scholarship, was established in 1978 by BU trustees to honor two top-ranked junior women who are excellent scholars, have high moral character and personal integrity, contribute to the BU community, and have demonstrated skills useful in their chosen fields.
Nicolette Maggiolo (SAR’15), a nutrition student, was awarded a Melville Scholarship in recognition of her ability to excel academically while juggling a range of real-world experiences in her field. At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Maggiolo helps oncology patients order food to balance their nutritional needs with chemotherapy-induced aversions. In the Foxborough public schools, she has collaborated with the director of food service to launch school gardens and salad bars while ushering in a transition from processed food to scratch cooking in cafeterias. Under the guidance of Paula Quatromoni, a Sargent College associate professor of nutrition, she developed a digital nutrition education curriculum for middle schoolers that’s being piloted in Everett, Cambridge, and Foxborough.
Around BU, Maggiolo has given tours as an admissions ambassador, served as an alternative spring break coordinator, a staff leader for the First-Year Student Outreach Project, a student advisor for orientation, and as a resident assistant in the Towers.
Maggiolo says she was “in shock and honored” when she heard she’d won the Melville, which will allow her to stay at BU her full senior year. Prior to the award, she had planned on graduating early to save money.
In addition to Maggiolo, Lawrence Knox (COM’15) was honored at the ceremony for receiving a Melville Scholarship.
Knox, a College of Communication journalism major with a concentration in photojournalism, is an accomplished ballet dancer. She has retired from professional dancing, but teaches at The Brookline Ballet School. She also is an arts writer and photographer for The ARTery, WBUR’s website.
Kameron Clayton (CAS’15, CFA’15) was one of five recipients of the Harold C. Case Scholarship. The neuroscience and tuba performance double major is interested in studying how musical training can impact people’s lives, and how it could potentially be used as a clinical tool for the hearing impaired.
Under the supervision of Jayaganesh Swaminathan, an SAR research assistant professor of speech, language, and hearing sciences, Clayton conducts research in a psychoacoustics lab, hoping to learn why musicians seem to have an advantage in a cocktail party listening environment. His hypothesis? “It’s probably not about how a musician is hearing or seeing,” he says, “but how these different streams of conversation [at a party] are being integrated and segregated at higher levels in the cortex.” He plans to pursue the line of research in graduate school, where imaging studies could help illuminate differences in the brains of musicians and non-musicians.
Clayton created and organized the 2014 Boston University Music and the Brain Symposium, and he is editor in chief of The Nerve, the University’s undergraduate neuroscience journal. In collaboration with Michael Degener, a College of Arts & Sciences senior lecturer in the writing program, he also received Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) funding in the summer of 2013 to do the first full-length study of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.
Clayton says BU has taught him that “my potential to do so many different things was actually a lot greater than I thought.” He might also soon be the winner of the understatement-of-the-year award.
The Case Scholarships were instituted in 1967 to honor the achievements of BU’s fifth president, Harold C. Case (STH’27, Hon.’67) and recognize juniors who are both excellent scholars and active participants in University life. The following four students also earned this award, in addition to Clayton:
Kimberly Lu (CAS’16, MED’19)
A seven-year medical program student majoring in economics, Lu has conducted research in a BU dermatology lab and currently interns in the neurosurgery department at Boston Children’s Hospital. She has served as a learning assistant for the physics department, is a peer tutor in the Education Resource Center, leads campus tours for admissions, and competes on the BU gymnastics team.
Shivem Shah (ENG’15)
Shah is a biomedical engineering student who researches the creation of arterial grafts for congenital heart defects, the construction of stand-alone capillary networks, and the synthesis of nanoparticles for targeted molecular networks. He is also an executive member of the Society of Asian Scientists & Engineers.
Adrienne Todela (CAS’15, COM’15)
An international relations and journalism double major, Todela studied abroad last semester in London, where she interned with the African Foundation for Development. She also interned with the National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project and Lost Origin Productions in Washington, DC, and has been involved with multiple Model UN Conferences over the past few years.
Dustin Vandenberg (CAS’15)
A computer science and science and technology policy major, Vandenberg has long been a member of Model UN and Mock Trial at BU. He is the first person in the 13-year history of the Model UN to have been the secretary-general of two consecutive conferences. He has worked with the First-Year Student Outreach Project (FYSOP) since arriving at BU, and volunteers for the Prison Book Club run by the Community Service Center.
The Provost’s Scholars Award recognizes juniors who, in their first two years at BU, have stretched and tested their boundaries. “Part of the college experience is to move out of your internal comfort zone,” says Sue Kennedy, assistant provost for academic affairs. The goal of the award was to “have students take on a challenge and push themselves in some way.” UROP provides these scholars with funds to travel to conferences or conduct research in their field of interest. The following students received this award:
Davis Borucki, (ENG’16)
Borucki, a biomedical engineering major, served as an SAT teacher at Let’s Get Ready Boston, a nonprofit that coaches students from underserved high schools on the SAT and the college application process. He works as a learning assistant for the chemistry department and has conducted research in both civil engineering and biomedical engineering. He enjoys creating apps for nonprofits with the Global App Initiative Club. And he recently started ballroom dancing.
Stefanie Grossano (CAS’16)
Grossano is interested in studying the achievement gap and education policy and has fashioned her independent major by combining neuroscience, sociology, and political science with a minor in education. She works as a research assistant in the School of Education’s Social Learning Lab administering studies, coding data, and learning about experimental design.
Angela Massey (CAS’16)
An astronomy and physics double major, Massey is a former Research Internship in Science and Engineering (RISE) Scholar who lead a research project her first semester at BU. Last summer, she conducted research at the University of Exeter in England on a self-designed study abroad experience.
Kailey Miller (CAS’16)
Miller entered BU as a sculpture major, but found her passion in bioanthropology and is minoring in visual arts and African studies.
Susanne Neher (CAS’16)
Neher, a Kilachand Honors College student majoring in international relations and minoring in African studies, does research on public health interventions in Kimana, Kenya. She works under the direction of Timothy Longman, associate professor and director of the African Studies Center.
Benjamin Salus (CFA’16)
A theater arts major, Salus worked his first semester under Jim Petosa, the College of Fine Arts director of the School of Theatre, as the director’s assistant on Pacific Overtures. He will study abroad in the spring and conduct interviews on what it means to be a man in the 21st century as material to inform his developing one-man show.
Chang Tang (CAS’16)
Tang, a psychology and economics double major, has conducted research in the Behavior Insights Lab at Harvard Business School. At BU, she serves as a hall representative, a council member of the Terrier Connection and is an active member of a co-ed community service fraternity and a member of the National Psychology Honor Society.
Dallas Walter, (CAS’16)
A linguistics major with minors in chemistry and biology, Walter studied abroad in Grenoble, France, and volunteered to work in a pharmaceutical lab within the chemistry department while there.
Beckman Foundation Scholar Awards, offered through UROP, allow students to conduct part-time research during two academic years and full-time research over two summers. Beckman scholars travel to Irvine, Cal., each summer to present their research before a group of other Beckman scholars, mentors, scientists, and administrators. The following students earned this award:
Shannon Anderson (ENG’16)
Under the guidance of Joyce Wong, an ENG professor of biomedical engineering, Anderson is researching biomaterial scaffolds for nerve repair. The project focuses on the use of silk to create novel scaffolding biomaterials, which serve as the framework for regenerating a wide variety of human tissue, including nerve tissue. This research could have an impact on the treatment of central nervous system injuries, including the restoration of motor function through the reestablishment of lost neural connections.
Mikayla Huestis (CAS’16)
Under the guidance of Adrian Whitty, a CAS associate professor of chemistry, Huestis is studying how growth factor receptors mediate the ability of cells to sense and respond to their environment.
The Clare Boothe Luce Scholar Award is dedicated to encouraging women to enter, study, graduate, and teach science, mathematics, and engineering. UROP offers these awards in support of summer research projects. The following students earned this award:
Julie Hammond (CAS’15)
Hammond, a physics major and French minor, worked with liquid crystals, which are used in liquid crystal displays (LCDs) for a wide variety of consumer products, including digital clocks, elevator displays, and some computer monitors. Richard Averitt, a CAS adjunct professor of physics, was her faculty mentor for her summer research—non-equilibrium dynamics in quantum systems.
Isabela Haghighi (ENG’15)
A mechanical engineering major interested in nanotechnology, Haghighi’s research involves the use of graphene in nanoelectromechanical systems.
Emily Lam (ENG’14, ’16)
While pursuing her master’s in electrical engineering, Lam is researching how to increase lighting efficiency and productivity. She was a member of Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) and was a Summer Pathways teaching assistant.
Chloe Wendell (CAS’15)
Wendell, who is majoring in chemistry, conducts research on the synthesis of antibacterial compounds.
Cynthia Pyles (CAS’15)
A chemistry major who has served as a learning assistant and teaching fellow in her department, Pyles focuses on the use of spectroscopy, a light scattering method, to compare metabolic activity of healthy cells to cancerous cells over time.
Anna Impastato (CAS’15)
Impastato is a chemistry major whose research works with compounds and processes that could lead to drug discovery.
Ann Lane (ENG’16)
A WISE member with a computer engineering major and a systems engineering minor, Lane studies demand response programs and data centers’ interactions with the smart grid.
Katie Lewis (ENG’17)
A biomedical engineering major, Lewis focuses on research that would integrate software tools to reduce human error and structure the way designs are chosen, assembled, and tested. Katie is an ENG teaching assistant, gives tours of her college to prospective students, and writes for the science section of the Daily Free Press.
Alison Kendler (CAS’16)
Kendler, who studies computer science, is focusing on designing internet security protocols meant to prevent hacking.
Bethany Lamoureux (CAS’16)
A chemistry major, Lamoureux is conducting a theoretical and experimental study of the solvation dynamics of near-critical carbon dioxide.
Kai Lin (CAS’15)
Lin is researching protein translation initiation as part of her biochemistry degree.
Amy Ly (CAS’15)
A chemistry major, Ly focuses on creating synthetic copies of alkaloid-type compounds, which are valuable structures for drug delivery or as drugs themselves.
Emily Mitsock (CAS’15)
Mitsock is using her background chemistry degree to develop a stronger cement for dental implants.
Maya Saint Germain (ENG’16)
A computer engineering major, Saint Germain works on the manipulation of voice signals through the use of MATLAB programming.
Fulbright Scholars live, work, and conduct research in a country of their choice with the support of the US government. “The common thread is that these people bring with them the best aspects of American culture,” Kennedy says. “And they are going to be the willing recipients of the best aspects of their host communities.” The following students are Fulbright Scholars:
Christopher Conz (GRS’18)
A doctoral student of history, Conz is in Lesotho studying the changing relationships between humans and the natural environment in southeastern Lesotho from 1880 to 1970.
Lynne Cooney (GRS’16)
Cooney is in Johannesburg, South Africa, studying artists who played a significant role in defining and transforming the city to an inclusive, multicultural metropolis.
Matthew Egger (CAS’14)
A double major in archaeology and German, Egger is in Germany in a master’s program in classical archaeology at the University of Tuebingen.
Heather Stebbins (CFA’17)
Stebbins is in Estonia working with composer Helena Tulve to compose a work for a small orchestra.
Mary-Mildred Stith (GRS’17)
Stith, a doctoral student of anthropology, is in Tanzania researching the social and spatial impacts of mining in Africa.
Christian Williams (CAS’14)
A double major in linguistics and German literature, Williams is in Turkey serving as an English teaching assistant.
The Luce Scholars Program, sponsored by the Henry Luce Foundation, gives students with limited experience in Asia an opportunity to live on the continent. Joshua Cole (CAS’14) is currently in South Korea after completing his degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology and French language and literature. Cole is BU’s first Luce Scholar in more than a decade.
Comments & Discussion
Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.