(Trinity Science Majors at ABRCMS Conference with Professor Emerita Dr. Saundra Oyewole on the right- Photo thanks to Dr. Patrice Moss)
This week my blog is counting-up the many reasons for gratitude for all that we share in Trinity. The engagement and achievements of our students, faculty and staff bring joy, challenge, occasional puzzlement and often delight into our lives. I am grateful for the hard work of so many colleagues and the serious engagement of our students in the arduous but rewarding process of learning.
I would like to give special recognition in this blog to our students and faculty in the sciences. Consistently, Trinity scientists perform at very high academic levels and are gaining national recognition for their achievements. Among many examples, the participation of Trinity students in the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) stands out. This year, Clare Boothe Luce Professor of Biochemistry Dr. Patrice Moss led a group of 8 Trinity students to the ABRCMS conference in Phoenix, accompanied as well by Luce Professor Dr. Mia Ray. The students included Kimberly Cruz, Laura Garcia, Marcela Gutierrez, Zoey Lake, Desirae Stewart, Raissa Audrey Tesumie, Danielle Vado and Nyanda Wright. The students presented research that they conducted during summer internships.
Senior Laura Garcia, a Biochem major, won an award for best poster presentation in the social and behavioral sciences. Laura had a summer research internship at Georgetown where she worked on a project entitled, “Retrospective Analysis of Barrett’s Esophagus: The Role Body Mass Index Plays in Successfully Treating BE and in the Recurrence of Dysplastic BE.” Congratulations, Laura!
Senior Kimberly Cruz also had the honor of being invited to make an oral presentation about her research last summer at Stanford University School of Medicine.
(Trinity science majors at UMBC conference)
In October, Dr. Moss and a group of science majors also spent a weekend at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) presenting their research. The students (photo above) include Marcela Gutierrez ’20, Zoey Lake ’19, Nyanda Wright ’19, Desirae Stewart ’18, Raissa Audrey Tseumie ’18, and Danielle Vado ’19.
Danielle Vado won first place in the Chemical Sciences and Marcela Gutierrez took second prize in the Biological Sciences! Congratulations, Danielle and Marcela!
All students gave poster presentations and their participation made Trinity’s science program stand out — check out the titles of the presentations in the photos below: (from the top: Danielle Vado, Desiree Stewart, Marcela Gutierrez, Nyanda Wright, Zoey Lake, Audrey Tseumie)
As a result of the excellent work of Trinity scientists — faculty and students together! — major foundations are investing in Trinity’s model for student success. We are so grateful to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute whose grant of $1 million payable over the next five years will support faculty innovation in curricula and pedagogy designed to encourage enrollment, persistence and completion for low income women of color in the sciences. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Cynthia DeBoy for leading the faculty team in this effort.
At the same time, Trinity also continues to enjoy remarkable support through the Clare Boothe Luce Program of the Henry Luce Foundation. Mrs. Luce left a stunning legacy that will benefit Trinity’s science students and faculty in perpetuity. This year, we were so pleased to name three new Clare Boothe Luce Scholars: Raissa Audrey Tseumie ’18, Taylor Gage ’18, and Zoey Lake ’19. These young women follow in the footsteps of many previous Luce Scholars, and they reflect some of the best of our contemporary work. We are fortunate that they have the guidance of our Luce Professors — Dr. Patrice Moss, Dr. Mia Ray, Dr. Karobi Moitra — as well as the other outstanding faculty in the sciences as well as in mathematics.
So many more achievements to come, in many other fields of Trinity endeavor. Watch this blog for the next installment off GRATITUDE!