Annual graduate student awards were presented by the WSU Association for Faculty Women (AFW) Tuesday night, April 6.
AFW President Rebecca Craft, left,
and Judy Y. Wu.
and Judy Y. Wu.
The winner of the 2010 Founders Award for master’s degree students is Judy Y. Wu, entomology.
She received her B.S. in zoology from Humbolt State University in California in 2005. Her research examines sub-lethal effects of pesticide residues in brood comb on worker honey bee development and larval survivability, adult longevity and susceptibility to other pests and pathogens.
She has received several grants from various organizations to support her research. Recently, she earned the Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees scholarship and the American Association of Professional Apiculturists “best student paper competition” award for her presentation at the 2010 American Beekeeping Research Conference.
She is preparing manuscripts of her research for publication in peer-reviewed journals.
Finalists for the Harriett B. Rigas Award for doctoral students are:
AFW President Rebecca Craft, left,
and Sudarvili Shanthalingam.
and Sudarvili Shanthalingam.
First place: Sudarvili Shanthalingam, veterinary microbiology and pathology.
She received her D.V.M. in 2000 in Sri Lanka. She joined the laboratory of S. Srikumaran in fall 2005. Her research involves the study of Mannheimia haemolytica, an organism responsible for most significant respiratory disease that occurs in domestic and wild ruminants.It is prevalent worldwide and has been estimated to cost more than $1 billion/year to the U.S. cattle industry.
She has published six papers on this research, and has two patents pending.
Second place: April K. Binder, School of Molecular Biosciences.
She received her B.A. in biology with a minor in chemistry from the University of Redlands in California. She joined the laboratory of John Nilson in fall 2003 and received her Ph.D. in December 2009. Her research focused on the molecular mechanism of hypothalamic gonadotropin-releasing hormone and its actions in the anterior pituitary. From this work she has published three papers.
Last summer she was chosen to present a talk on her work at the 42nd Annual Meeting for the Society for the Study of Reproduction. She also was nominated and is running as a trainee representative for the Board of Directors for the Society. In 2008 she was awarded the Molecular Biosciences Excellence in Graduate Research award. Additionally, she has been recognized for her superior performance as an instructor. She is employed as a postdoctoral fellow in North Carolina.
Second place: Willow R. Lindsay, School of Biological Sciences
She received her B.S. with honors in wildlife biology from the University of Montana; there she participated in the McNair Scholars program as a first-generation female college student. During her graduate studies, which began in 2004, she served as a mentor to two McNair undergraduate scholars at WSU. For her graduate work, she has been co-mentored by Hubert Schwabl and Michael Webster.
Her research involves the study of animal sociality. Her interest in this area began as an undergraduate when she did research on the social lives of sweat bees in southern Australia. Her research focus here at WSU has been on an Australian family of birds called fairy-wrens. Her research identified how hormones influence social behavior and morphology and how these alterations contribute to sexual selection and evolution of wild animal species.
Third place: Cara L. Preuss, teaching and learning
She received her B.A. in education with honors and her M.A. in bilingual education from WSU. She is working in language and literacy under the mentorship of Joy Egbert and is the only student in the College of Education who has written a 100-page dissertation grant proposal, which was funded by a federal agency.
Her nominator writes: “She is an accomplished writer and has published and presented in a variety of forums. For example, her article in Essential Teacher will reach 26,000 ‘English as a Second Language’ educators.” She has brought to her doctoral work her Peace Corps experiences of serving as a bilingual elementary school teacher and working for social justice. She is under consideration for an internship with the federal government in Washington, D.C.
Honorable mention: Janine J. Darragh, teaching and learning
She received her B.A. in 1994 and M.A. in 1999 in secondary English education from Ohio University. After spending a number of years teaching, she joined the graduate program in language and literacy education at WSU under the mentorship of Jane Kelley. She is a national board-certified teacher – a recognition that few K-12 teachers achieve.
Through her dissertation research, she developed exceptional knowledge of adolescent literature and its uses in schools. Her work focuses on adolescent literature about children with disabilities and how middle school students perceive children with disabilities. These findings should provide insights on and implications for teaching practices in K-12 education.
She is seeking a tenure-track faculty position in the field of literacy education.