Community of Scholars Honors Graduate Students

More than 60 cited for excellence in research, teaching

More than 60 University of Missouri-Kansas City graduate students were recognized for outstanding research and teaching at the 2015 Community of Scholars event. Faculty, family, and friends filled the room to honor these students.

The annual award program, conducted by the School of Graduate Studies in partnership with the Doctoral Student Council, had some new features this year. Demonstrating a new level of support for graduate education and teaching in Kansas City, three private firms are now sponsoring awards in the program.

Dr. Jacob McGuire, who studied Oral and Craniofacial Sciences and Pharmacology, earned this year’s Outstanding Dissertation Award. Otis Worldwide, a division of United Technologies, provided a $1,000 grant to accompany the award.

Nathinee Chucherdwatanasak, a student of Musicology, received the Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award. Coventry/Aetna is sponsoring the award, which also carried a $1,000 grant.

Staples is sponsoring the Superior Graduate Teaching Assistant recognition program with $350 grants to each of six student winners:

• Rachel Anderson, Bloch School of Management
• Joanie Brady, Nursing
• Karim Pirani, Biology
• Sarah Polo, English
• Xing Song, Statistics
• Dayu Wang, Chemistry

“We are extremely grateful to these businesses for recognizing the importance of graduate education to the local, national and global economies,” said Denis M. Medeiros, Ph.D., RD, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies. “Graduate education develops the talent pool that these and other companies will look to in the future to fill key positions and develop into tomorrow’s leaders.”

Awards for Symposium and Poster presentations included:

Paper/Multimedia Presentations:

• Mayanka Chandra Shekar
• Ande Davis
• Chetan Jaiswal

Poster Presentations:

• Social Sciences and Humanities: D. Nicole English
• Health Sciences: Byeongtaek Oh
• Physical Sciences: Jones Mutua

Arthur Mag Graduate Fellowships were awarded to Abigail Ness, Clinical Psychology; and Craig Workman, English/History. MacQuarrie Fellowships were awarded to Vibhuti Agrahari, Pharmaceutical Sciences/Chemistry; and Kadie Harry, Clinical Psychology.

Seven students were recognized with Preparing Future Faculty awards:

• Vibhuti Agrahari, Pharmaceutical Sciences/Chemistry
• Bryan Fox, Experimental Psychology
• Derek Jenkins, Music Composition
• Alex Omorodion, Curriculum and Instruction/Physics
• Catherine Ramos, Cello Performance
• Muhammad Sana Ullah, Electrical and Computer Engineering/Physics
• Yan Zhang, Pharmacology/Cell Biology and Biophysics.

Dr. Cory Beard, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering, was recognized with the Outstanding Interdisciplinary Faculty Award.

The program also recognized 35 graduate students who received research grants to further their work.


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