Greetings from the Jischke Honors Building! Hopefully you received your copy of "With Honors" in December and have been anticipating the launch of this electronic newsletter and more frequent updates from campus. For those of you who have moved or missed our winter mailing, you can read the Fall 2020 issue online. We look forward to connecting with you more frequently!
Laurie Smith Law, Director
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Dr. Joe Ford ('66 animal science, Ph.D. '72) was a friend, colleague, and mentor to many at Iowa State, including those of us in Honors. Dr. Ford attributed his long and successful career in part to his experience doing undergraduate research as an Honors student at Iowa State. He worked as a research physiologist at the United States Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center, Nebraska, from 1974 to 2009.
We were deeply saddened to learn that Dr. Ford was killed in a car accident on December 20, 2020, near Malvern, IA.
His legacy includes the establishment of the Robert M. Melampy Fund with the Iowa State University Foundation. The fund supports Honors students doing faculty-mentored research in animal science. It was named in honor of his research mentor and a longtime faculty member in the department, Robert Melampy. If you’re interested in supporting the Melampy Fund or other priorities within the Honors Program, visit us online.
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Paiton McDonald, a junior in agricultural biochemistry and international agriculture, served as one of three First-Year Honors Program undergraduate assistants in the fall. Paiton's success as an undergraduate researcher and student leader exemplifies what it means to be an Honors student. She was featured by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences last fall. |
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Paiton has a great impact on everything she does. - Desiree Gunning, Roy J. Carver Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology |
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Mala Sharma ('17 biology), a first-year medical student at the University of Iowa, and Ben Dralle ('19 nutritional science, genetics), a second-year medical student at Ohio State University, participated in Iowa State's first Pre-Health Conference held virtually on February 20, 2021. The conference was organized and hosted by ISU students and featured sessions for professional tracks in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, physical and occupational therapy, and more.
Other Honors alumni participating in the conference included Alissa Campbell ('16 genetics, microbiology), Harvard Medical School; Richard Gardner ('19 kinesiology & health), University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine; and Rebecca Lair ('18 biology), Des Moines University.
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More than 60 Iowa State undergraduate students were accepted to participate in this year's National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), including 26 Honors students. The conference will be held virtually, April 12-14.
The following students received financial support through the Iowa State University Foundation for their participation in the annual event. They are recipients of Honors Student Enrichment Grants, which help fund conference registration, travel, and publication fees. Student Enrichment Grants help ensure all Honors students have access to these high-impact opportunities. They are made possible through contributions from alumni and friends like you.
Darcy Bonds, Horticulture
Improving the sustainability of animal and crop production agriculture: evaluation of biochar-swine manure mixture impact on soil nutrient availability and plant uptake
Faculty mentor: Jacek Koziel, agricultural and biological systems engineering
William Crow, Biology
Creating a transgenic drosophila line expressing mRFPruby in primordial germ cells
Faculty mentor: Clark Coffman, genetics, development and cell biology
Elizabeth Cuvelier, Elementary Education
Mental health among college athletes
Faculty mentor: Jacob Meyer, kinesiology
Haley Dostalik, Genetics
Functional annotation of the grape genome
Faculty mentor: Caroline Lawrence-Dill, agronomy
Jacob Gasper, Architecture
Architectural clay formworks
Faculty mentor: Shelby Doyle, architecture
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Morrill Professor Don Sakaguchi
Stem Cells and Bioengineering for Brain Repair Strategies
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Don Sakaguchi, Morrill Professor of genetics, development and cell biology, discussed his highly collaborative, interdisciplinary research program during the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Lecture on March 23, 2021. Each spring Professor Sakaguchi welcomes into his lab a new group of undergraduate students participating in the First-Year Honors Mentored Research Program. A great champion of students, he is training the next generation of bioengineers.
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Check your mail! Graduates of the Honors Program should have received a letter last month from the Honors Program Alumni Board. The board is soliciting support for the many unique opportunities Honors offers students to dig deeper and go further. Misplaced the envelope? We've got you covered. Read the letter here, and consider giving online!
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Your Gift at Work
Benjamin Hones, a student in mechanical engineering, and Rachel Eike, assistant professor of Apparel, Events & Hospitality Management, received a First-Year Honors Mentor Program Grant for their project, "Procedural development for chemical separation of cotton/polyester blends for textile recycling."
Sustainability in the apparel and textile industries is an ongoing challenge; discarded textiles often end up in landfills. Professor Eike's and Ben's research addresses how the fiber-separation process used to recycle blended textiles can be made viable for large-scale industry use.
The funding allowed Ben to work on the first phase of the research, helping the team evaluate the concentration of a chemical solvent used to separate cotton from polyester and nylon in blended fabrics. He also assisted with the electrospinning of the newly separated fibers. The project offered not only the hands-on research experience but also an opportunity to coauthor a paper for presentation to the International Textiles and Apparel Association.
It was awesome to work on a project outside of my major so that I could combine what I've learned from my course of study with the new things I researched and learned in the textiles department. - Ben Hones, mechanical engineering student
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