Three College of Arts and Sciences undergraduates are awarded a Kenny Scholarship

Three College of Arts and Sciences undergraduates are awarded a Kenny Scholarship

Three outstanding College of Arts and Sciences undergraduates have been awarded the Michael P. and Elizabeth A. Kenny Merit Scholarship for the Sciences. The Kennys endowed these scholarships to support undergraduates in the departments of biological sciences, chemistry, or physics.

Naveena Daram is a Biomedical Sciences major. Last summer she participated in the Summer Undergraduate Program in Eye Research, working with Profesor Shravan Chintala of the Eye Research Institute. Her studies focused on the death of retinal ganglion cells and the degeneration of their axons leading to blindness in glaucoma. Naveena presented her research at the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters Conference in Saginaw Valley University, and is a member of the Honors College.

Elizabeth Jankulovski is a Bioengineering major. She works with Professor Shailesh Lal to analyze a human otholog of a maize RNA binding motif protein 48 gene associated with acute myeloid leukemia. Elizabeth’s research was supported by the Undergraduate Summer Research Program for Bioengineering majors. She presented her research at two Maize Genetics Conferences, one in St. Charles, Illinois and the other in Jacksonville, Florida.

Megan Kaster is a Chemistry major. She performs research with Professor Evan Trivedi to develop synthetic compounds that could be used to image cancer using magnetic resonance imaging or near-infrared fluorescence. Last summer Megan participated in the Summer Research Program in Biological Sciences and Chemistry. She presented her research at the American Chemical Society National Meeting in San Diego, and is a member of the Honors College.