The Gassengang
Madushani Dharmawardana, in her 4th year, has been named as the Industry Etter Student Lecturer at the American Crystallographic Association’s 2017 national conference in New Orleans. She presented her submitted work on thermochromic and dynamic crystals and was chair of the General Interest I section.
Super scientist and PhD student Candace Benjamin has received a fellowship from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research
Fellowship Program (GRFP). The GRFP provides three years of financial support within a five-year fellowship period ($34,000 annual stipend and $12,000 cost-of-education allowance to the graduate institution). That support is for graduate study that leads to a research-based master’s or doctoral degree in S&E. That means Candace, who is currently a second year, will not graduate for another five years. (hehehehehehe)
The Gassensmith Chemical Virology Group received an NSF CAREER award for its work on modifying viral capsids using novel bioconjugation methods. It is largely based upon the hard work of graduate student Zhuo Chen, who’s seminal paper in Small and her 2016 review in WIRES Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology set the tone for the proposal. Substantial preliminary work was also conducted by Candace Benjamin. Their efforts were aided, in no small part, by the six other members of the Gassensmith lab including former postdoc Na Li, who has since moved on to a career in industry. Jeremiah primarily sits in his office answering the phone when it rings and keeping his Twitter up to date, so he takes and deserves less credit than the aforementioned rockstars who should feel free to take a day this month off to celebrate. (just kidding… kind of.)