2016 Undergraduate Highlights

Cassia Wagner received the College of Letters and Science Outstanding Graduating Senior Award. Cassia will be in Bozeman for the summer but plans to travel to the University of Helsinki for a research experience in the fall. Her long term plan is to attend medical school.

Tacey Hicks (2016, Robert Szilagyi advisor), Sage Schiller (2019, Valérie Copié advisor), and Kyle Tweedy (2018, Mary Cloninger advisor) were recipients of the 2016 Presidential Emerging Scholar Grant from the Office of the President. According to the emerging scholar website “The Presidential Emerging Scholar Grant is a unique affirming grant, which may be bestowed upon a Montana State University undergraduate in recognition of their potential for success as an emerging scholar.” Congratulations to these three students.

Many undergraduates received awards for their academic and research efforts at the department’s Undergraduate Awards Ceremony held April 28th, 2016 in the Byker Auditorium. Awards went to outstanding freshmen Taylor Oken and Ben Ellison, outstanding sophomore, Gabrielle Law and outstanding seniors Brigit Noon, Cody Minor and Cassia Wagner.


2016 Graduate Student Highlights

The Graduate Student Association (GSA) officially registered as an MSU student organization.  GSA exists to strengthen the graduate student community with the aim of serving the needs and improving the experience and research quality of the current graduate students. To keep up with the graduate student news, visit their website at www.montana.edu/chembiochemgsa.


Check out GSA’s new t-shirt for sale at www.montana.edu/chembiochemgsa/tshirtsale.html.


For the past two years, the graduate students have met two to three times a semester to practice talks for orals, defenses and conferences, as well as learning more about each other’s research. As a department, we are proud of the graduate students creating a student led organization and creating a professional atmosphere of academic and scholarly excellence.


Several graduate students received awards during the 2015–2016 academic school year. Jacob Artz (John Peters advisor) received a travel award for first place in the poster session at the Graduate Student Summit held at MSU in October of 2015. The title of Jacob’s poster was “Hydrogenases as a Model System for the Study of Catalytic Bias.” The first annual Harlan Byker Research Assistantship was awarded to a first year graduate student Casey Kennedy (Erik Grumstrup, advisor). Michelle Aries (Mary Cloninger advisor), Mackenzie Norlin (Mary Cloninger advisor), Rebecca Danforth (Bern Kohler advisor) and Katie Link (Rob Walker advisor) all received E.W. Mares Award for their contributions to the undergraduate teaching mission of the university (below). The Gordon Pagenkopf Research Award was given to Amanda Fuchs (Valérié Copié advisor) for exemplifying professionalism in graduate research. The Graduate School awarded Amanda Byer (Joan Broderick advisor) a travel grant to attend a national conference in 2016.