Students recognized with variety of awards

The Rice Student Association marked the end of the year by presenting Rice University Service Awards to Michael Contreras, a civil and environmental engineering graduate student, and Jennifer Holm, a senior in bioengineering. The award memorializes former Rice Dean of Students Hugh Scott Cameron.

In addition, Outstanding Senior Award recipients were Teddy Bucher, chemical and biomolecular engineering, Tony Castilleja, mechanical engineering and materials science, and Akshay Dayal, electrical and computer engineering, and Brett Olson and Roque Sanchez, both of civil and environmental engineering.

Alicia Allen, who graduated this month with a double major in bioengineering and French, is among five Rice University seniors to win a Fulbright Scholarship this year.

The Lovett College senior, who worked on tissue engineering research at Rice, will travel to South Korea to teach English and share U.S. culture. She will receive an intensive six weeks of instruction in the Korean language before being assigned to a school.

The Fulbright Scholarship program is sponsored by the State Department and allows seniors, recent graduates and graduate students to study, teach and conduct research in a foreign country. Scholars are chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential.

Shuai “Steve” Xu, a bioengineering graduate, received a Marshall Scholarship, an award sponsored by the British Consulate that provides up to two years of study at any university in the U.K. The scholarship recognizes students who exhibit academic excellence, strong leadership skills and superior research commitment. In addition, Xu is among 18 Rice students to receive a Wagoner Foreign Study Scholarship, the most prestigious study-abroad award offered by Rice.

Xu was a 2008 recipient of USA Today’s All-USA College Academic First Team. In 2005, he received a Rice University/Baylor College of Medicine scholarship, and he has been accepted at Baylor College of Medicine.

Jennifer Holm, a graduating bioengineering senior, won a Whitaker International Fellowship to conduct research in the laboratories of physician scientist Michael Raghunath at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Administered by the Institute of International Education, Whitaker International Fellowships are designed to strengthen international ties through collaboration while contributing to students’ graduate studies in biomedical engineering.

Christopher Lam, a senior chemical engineering major, was one of 234 students nationally to win a Tau Beta Pi scholarship. The Tau Beta Pi Association was founded at Lehigh University in 1885 by Edward Higginson Williams Jr. to recognize engineering students and alumni who honor their Alma Mater by distinguished scholarship and exemplary character or by their achievements in the field of engineering.

Melissa Duarte, ECE graduate students, received the Roberto Rocca Fellowship, which helps fund studies for exceptional university graduates from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Romania and Venezuela, toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering, at a university of the student's choosing outside his or her home country.

ECE graduate student Manjari Narayan has won Google's Anita Borg Scholarship which encourages women to excel in computing in technology and become active role models and leaders in the field. Recipients receive $10,000 and are invited to the Annual Google Scholars' Retreat in Mountain View, Calif. in June.

Seventeen engineering students were elected to Phi Beta Kappa, a significant honor recognizing outstanding achievement in the liberal arts and sciences. They were elected as Members-in-Course by the Beta of Texas Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at Rice and were initiated into the chapter on May 8. To be considered for membership, students at Rice must have completed at least ninety semester hours in courses that reflect the pursuit of learning for its own sake, rather than a focus on the development of particular professional skills. These students have "demonstrated a level of commitment to excellence and a love of learning that eminently qualify them for membership in Phi Beta Kappa," according to the Chapter's announcement.

Alyssa Marie Baevich, Bioengineering
Sam Banon, Chemical Engineering
Marta Leah Bjornson, Bioengineering
Larissa Charnsangavej, Bioengineering
Allen Liang-Teen Chen, Bioengineering
Roxana Rose Daneshjou, Bioengineering
Shuai Xu, Bioengineering
Mimi Wei Zhang, Bioengineering
Christopher James Jensen, Chemical Engineering
Kenneth Edward Davis, Mechanical Engineering
Rahul Agrawal, Mechanical Engineering
Elizabeth Ann Rowan, Mechanical Engineering
Emily Anne Fortuna, Computer Science
Aaron Hallquist, Electrical Engineering, Math
Thomas James Deitch, Electrical Engineering
Brett Anthony Olson, Civil Engineering
Grant Karl Warnecke, Civil Engineering