2012 Spring Graduate Student News

Nikole K. Lewis, doctoral student in the Department of Planetary Sciences, is the recipient of the 2012 Gerard P. Kuiper Memorial Award. The award is presented to University of Arizona (UA) students in the field of planetary sciences who have excelled in academic work and research. The award is presented

Nikole K. Lewis has been named a 2012 Sagan Fellow. These highly competitive NASA fellowships, which provide a generous salary and travel budget for three years, are aimed at supporting the top recent Ph.D. graduates nationwide in the area of exoplanets. They can be hosted at any U.S. institution; Nikole

Kudos to Davin Flateau and Ethan Schaefer, both 2012 recipients of NSF Graduate Research Program Fellowships (GRPFs). The fellowships provide three years of funding.

Davin is joining PTYS as a new graduate student in Fall 2012. His winning proposal is titled "Characterizing Brown Dwarf Variability: A Key to Understanding

Congratulations to LPL's 2012 Galileo Circle Scholarship recipients: Kathryn Gardner-Vandy, Tiffany Kataria, Ethan Schaefer, Devin Schrader, and Rob Zellem. Galileo Circle Scholarships are awarded to the University of Arizona's finest science students and represent the tremendous breadth of research interests in the College of Science.

Galileo Circle Scholars receive $1,000

The Shandel Education Plus Fund in Planetary Sciences and LPL provided travel funding for three students this year.

Ingrid Daubar received funds for travel to Moscow for the 7th European Strategic Meteor Workshop. Ingrid will present her work on the impact flux inferred from the fresh martian craters. Ingrid's advisor

Two PTYS students have been named recipients of NSERC (Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada) awards for the 2012 academic year.

Cecilia Leung, a first-year graduate student, has been awarded a NSERC postgraduate scholarship with funding for one year.

Michelle Thompson, also a first-year graduate student, has a

For the fifth consecutive year, the College of Science and the Associate Graduate Council for the College of Science (AGCCS) have sponsored graduate student award honors in the areas of service, teaching, and scholarship.

Kudos to 2012 recipients of the department awards: Kathryn Gardner-Vandy (Service), Christa Van Laerhoven (Teaching), and

Congratulations to Christa Van Laerhoven, recipient of the Fall 2011 Graduate Teaching Assistant Excellence Award!

For Fall 2011, Christa was a GTA for Joe Spitale's PTYS 214 (Astrobiology) section. Christa was recognized by her student nominators as "a phenomenal TA...easily one of the top two GTAs in 4 years at