Tracy Hammer Graduate Student Award for Professional Development

Deadline is January 31, 2012.

The Tracy A. Hammer Graduate Student Award for Professional Development is presented to an outstanding graduate student in support of their professional development.

Faculty and students may submit a nomination.

The Board of Directors of the CNS Alumni Association selects the recipient and presents the award at the annual alumni awards held in conjunction with Science University each April.

The award was renamed to memorialize 1995 co-recipient Tracy Anne Hammer. A native of New York, Hammer was the first dual-degree candidate to pursue a doctoral degree in animal genetics through the Department of Microbiology and the College of Veterinary Medicine. Her research centered on canine dilated cardiomyopathy. Hammer died in a plane while traveling to a scientific conference shortly before graduation. Her degree was awarded posthumously.

The Tracy A. Hammer award recipients receive a one-time scholarship funded by the CNSAA Endowed Scholarship Fund. Your gift to this fund will enable the College of Natural Science to grow the scholarship amount granted to future award winners.

2011 Recipient

Tomomi Suwa,
Department of Plant Biology

Tomomi Suwa is a PhD candidate and does research on the effects of herbicides on the ecology and evolution of soil microbes and the ultimate impact on ecosystems services. This research is sophisticated and could have major impacts on understanding the role of herbicides on ecosystems.

Suwa is the primary author of three published papers in ecological journals. Her skills as an educator and lecturer are already apparent as she has given nine poster or oral presentations at international meetings, two of which won awards. She has written several grant proposals and took the lead on writing a $400k research proposal to the USDA Biological Risk Assessment Program.

Suwa is passionate about evolutionary ecology. She has developed several thesis ideas and is conducting experiments on two aspects of her dissertation topic. The Hammer Award will help her further a portion of her research by allowing her to conduct field studies at the McLaughlin Natural Reserve in California. This opportunity will also allow Suwa to interact with full-time reserve managers and on-site researchers from one of the leading institutions in ecological and evolutionary research.

Past Recipients of the Tracy A. Hammer Graduate Student Award for Professional Development

1993 – Philip Schultz, Chemistry
1994 – Nancy S. Barta, Chemistry
1995 – Jose de Ondarza, Physiology, and Tracy A. Hammer, Microbiology & Veterinary Medicine
1996 – Eleny-Nicoleta Ionel, Mathematics, and Tedi Draghici, Mathematics
1997 – Matthew Gardner, Chemistry, and Vaughn Wagner, Zoology
1998 – Mark A. Waner, Chemistry
1999 – Thomas A. Cullen, Chemistry
2000 – Micah Stowe, Chemistry
2002 – Shannon Haymond, Chemistry, and Shibani Mukherjee, Microbiology & Molecular Genetics
2003 – Emil Bozin, Physics & Astronomy
2004 – Anne Fischer, Chemistry
2005 – Melissa Meaney, Chemistry
2006 – Ellen Wilch, Genetics Program
2007 – Rashad Simmons, Chemistry
2008 – Ed Kabara, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and Jaime Kopper, Cell & Molecular Biology Program
2009 – Kimberly Cervello, Science and Mathematics Education, and David Duriancik, Food Science & Human Nutrition
2010 – Samuel Pappas, Physiology, and Sarah Heim, Physics & Astronomy
2011 – Tomomi Suwa, Plant Biology