Improving the quality of life in Arizona to benefit future generations.
The Flinn Scholars Program will honor 23 graduating Scholars at the program's annual Recognition Dinner on May 17, celebrating the students' exceptional array of accomplishments during their undergraduate years and highlighting their diverse goals for the future.
On May 2, a select group of Flinn Scholars spent a day working in the Cornville art studio of internationally acclaimed sculptor John Waddell and his wife, painter Ruth Waddell. A visit to the Waddells' studio has been an annual highlight of the Flinn Scholars program for nearly all of the past 24 years.
Shelly Lowe ('92) is trading in her responsibilities as dean of Yale's Native American Cultural Center for a new role: executive director of the Harvard University Native American Program.
We've reached the time of year when Arizona's universities begin naming some of their most outstanding graduates. And no surprise: Our own Joe Fu ('03) is among the award winners.
Joe is the recipient of the Robie Gold Medal. According to this news item from UA, the Robie is awarded to one male and one female student who "show personal integrity, initiative, cooperativeness, enthusiasm, humility, well-rounded interests, active participation in student affairs, service to the University and willingness to give more than required and show a love of God and country."
That sounds like more than any one person could achieve, but that's Joe, all right:
At various times, he's worked with the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Arizona Cancer Center, and the Arizona House of Representatives. He's won the Truman Scholarship and a fellowship from the National Science Foundation. And he has conducted health-care outreach in India, Thailand, and Burma.
Has he slept during college? About that, I'm not sure...
When Wayne Shen ('04) completed his undergraduate studies at UA last spring, he wasn't completely sure what was next--he knew that he would apply to graduate school, but anticipated a Fall, 2009 start.
But remember, this is the Wayne we're talking about:
No real surprise, then, to get a note from Wayne today with the news that he moved up that timeline, applied early, and is now most of the way through his first semester at the great New England Conservatory. Here's a little of his note:
"At the moment I'm studying with Nick Kitchen, the 1st violinist of the Borromeo String Quartet. Lessons are going well, and getting to know lots of very talented people! [...]
I should mention that a few months ago I got to see Stephen Hough play the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Boston Symphony. That was exciting (my first time to hear Hough live). I also saw a masterclass he gave some NEC students, and marvelled at how beautiful his tone was. (It was nice to hear him up close!)"
Last weekend (February 11-15), Nashville was the center of the universe. David Hernandez ('04) should know, since he’s already explained to us all how to create a galaxy. This time, however, he explained the more refined techniques of that process to over a thousand assembled physicists at the 2009 Joint NSBP/NSHP Annual Conference.
His audiences were sufficiently impressed to award David the prize for ‘best poster’ at the conference, even though it was, in David’s terms, a ‘last-minute’ submission to the proceedings. Well done, David!
When Emily Ricq ('05) went to France last year, it wasn't just for the Mona Lisa and french fries.
She was in Paris at the Université Pierre et Maire Curie, where she was researching the properties of special lipopeptides--organic compounds--that can penetrate cells.
For her research, Emily has now won the 2009 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science for Life Undergraduate Creativity Award. Among 150 entrants for the award, she was one of five winners of HHMI awards for science.
"Emily is a great student to have around and is challenging in the best sense of the word," said Lynne A. Oland, a research scientist in the UA's Arizona Research Laboratories Division of Neurobiology, where Emily continues to conduct her research. "She is persistent, focused and loves what she is doing."
You can read more about Emily's work here.
Are you one of those people who spends a lot of time thinking about how to build a perpetual-motion machine? Chances are, you might belong on bulbstorm, the latest brainstorm of Bart Steiner ('87).
It was about 15 years ago, and we hadn't figured out yet exactly what we could make of the Flinn Scholarship's travel component. Then--if these distant memories are accurate--we saw Ruth Allard's ('90) slideshow from her trip to Costa Rica, where she'd done some conservation work for a summer.
For information about Flinn Scholars, please contact:
flinnscholars@flinn.org or (602) 744-6802
