Student Honors and Laurels
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Duke Today
Student Laurels and Honors

National Awards

Rhodes Scholar

A Duke senior was among this year's 32 recipients selected for Rhodes Scholarships.

Charles "Chas" Salmen of Glenwood Springs, Colo., was chosen from among 896 applicants at 340 colleges and universities throughout the country. Rhodes scholarships, created in 1902 by the will of British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes, provide two or three years of study at Oxford University in England.

A Lebanese-Jewish American, Salmen organized an Arab-Jewish coalition called Peace or Pieces, to promote peace in the Middle East. He was captain of the Duke indoor and outdoor track teams and the cross country team.

An English major, Salmen's senior thesis on Walt Whitman and D.H. Lawrence won a prize as most outstanding and original senior thesis. In addition, he has conducted research in the department of urology and has been co-author of two research papers published in the Journal of Urology. He has been a volunteer for four years in Durham's Big Brother Big Sisters program. He also organized and directed an effort by the cross country team that provided first-aid kits to Hurricane Katrina victims.

Luce Scholarship

Elizabeth Forwand, a Duke University graduate student whose goal is to work with communities to help them better manage forests, has won a Luce Scholarship for 2007-08. The Luce Scholars Program provides stipends and internships for 15 young Americans to live and work in Asia each year. The program was established in 1974 by the Henry Luce Foundation of New York City to increase awareness of Asia among future leaders in American society. Forwand, of Cambridge, Mass., is pursuing dual Master of Environmental Management and Master of Forestry degrees at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences. She will leave for Southeast Asia later this summer.

Churchill Scholarship

Brandon Levin, a Duke University senior, has been awarded a 2007 Winston Churchill Scholarship to pursue a year of graduate study at Cambridge University in England. The Churchill Scholarship Program enables outstanding American students to conduct graduate studies in engineering, mathematics and the natural and physical sciences at Cambridge's Churchill College. Levin plans to continue his longtime interest in number theory and earn the equivalent of a master's degree at The Center for Mathematical Sciences, located near Churchill College. After completing the program at Cambridge, he plans to return to the U.S. to earn a doctoral degree and then join a university faculty.

Mitchell Scholarship

Jimmy Soni, a Duke University senior, is one of 12 Americans awarded a Mitchell Scholarship for a year of graduate study in Ireland. Soni, 21, of Westmont, Ill., plans to attend University College Cork for a master's degree in politics. The George J. Mitchell Scholarships are awarded annually to a dozen Americans under the age of 30 who exhibit the highest standards of academic excellence, leadership and community service. The awards are named after the former U.S. Senate majority leader who spearheaded the historic Good Friday Agreement of 1998 that produced peace in Northern Ireland.

Marshall Scholarship

Felicia Walton has won a Marshall Scholarship for two years of graduate study in the United Kingdom. Established in 1953 to commemorate the Marshall Plan, the scholarships are awarded each year to 40 or more "talented, independent and wide-ranging" young Americans to finance their study in the United Kingdom. Walton, of Asheville, N.C., plans to obtain a master's degree at the University of Cambridge and may continue there to work on a Ph.D. While working in the laboratory of Joseph Heitman in the Duke Center for Microbial Pathogenesis, Walton discovered a number of new genes as she studied forms of a fungus that causes dangerous infections in humans whose immune systems have been compromised.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarships

James Zou, of Columbus, Ohio, has received a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. This international scholarship program provides for outstanding students from outside the United Kingdom who gain admission to the University of Cambridge to pursue graduate degrees. Zou will continue his study of mathematics in the Part III program in Applied Math.

Truman Scholarship

Andrew Cunningham, of Rutland, Vt., is one of 65 students from 56 U.S. colleges and universities selected this year by the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.

Cunningham is a dual major in international comparative studies and Chinese. He is currently in China with the Duke Study in China program. Truman scholars are chosen based on their academic success, leadership potential and commitment to a career in public service.

J. W. Saxe Memorial Fund Award

Lee Pearson, Duke ‘08, is one of 12 students awarded $1,500 each to help them carry out their plans for public service during the summer or longer term. Selection was made by the board of directors of the J.W. Saxe Memorial Fund, of whom five members are earlier Saxe Prize winners. Pearson will work with the Rural Agency for Sustainable Development in Uganda.

Departmental Awards

Aerospace Studies

Kevin Burleson and Benjamin Spain received the AFROTC Distinguished Graduate Award.

African and African-American Studies

Ashley Nicole Gray received the Walter Burford Award for Community Service.

Naomi DeLeeuw Barroudough received the John Hope Franklin Award for the highest GPA. Barroudough also received the Karla F.C. Holloway Award for Service to Duke.

Art, Art History and Visual Studies

Heather Renne Huskey received the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation Visual Arts Award.

Sarah Dickens and Allana Strong received the Nancy Kaneb Art History Award.

Asian-Pacific Studies Institute

Sirena WuDunn Memorial Scholarships are given each year in memory of Sirena WuDunn, a Duke student who was killed when Korean Airlines flight 007 was shot down in 1983 by Soviet fighters. The awards are given to the students who best embody WuDunn's ideals and interests, particularly her interest in East-West culture and her commitment to academic excellence. Winners this year are as follows:

Anant Agarwalla (Floral Park, NY); Kiran Belani (Germantown, MD); Szeman Lam (Newton, MA); Yushen Qian (Monroe Township, NJ; and Pei Yen (Brookings, SD).

Andrew Ruffin (Oklahoma City, OK) was awarded a Janet B. Chiang Memorial Grant for support of participation in the 59th Japan-America Student Conference. Priority in awarding these grants is given to projects that further Asian/American understanding and encourage student leadership.

Athletics

Matthew Danowski and Lindsey Harding received the ACC Plaque for Excellence, Scholarship and Athletics.

Biology

Jesse Silverman received the James Best Memorial Award in Comparative Organizational Biology.

Felicia Walton received the Edward Horn Prize for Excellence in Biology.

Kevin Ford received the Excellence in Plant Science Prize.

James Cunning and Ruth McDowell received the Magie Schneider Award in Marine Biology.

Business

Stephanie Nelson received the Asa T. Spaulding Sr. Award for Leadership.

Andrew Rutter received the Breeden Award for Finance.

Lisa Previte received the Distinguished Service Award.

Vivek Gupta and Benjamin Kennedy shared the Keohane Award for Leadership.

Fayaz Ahmed Qureshi received the Alan Schwartz Award for Mentorship.

Chemistry

Kenneth Gordon Fellowships for Independent Study: Awarded to seniors who pursued independent study leading to Graduation with Distinction in Chemistry. The award provided funding for their research projects.

Jorge Gamez (Laredo ,TX)

Lindsey Ann Hanson (Croften, MD)

Ki-Hyon Kim (Seoul Korea)

Mark Edward Johnson (Clifton, NJ)

Matthew Carnochan Kinney (Alexandria, VA)

Vaibhav Upadhyay (Lake Forest, Il)

Scott Alan Wilson (Boxford, MA)

Vaibhav Upadhyay (Lake Forest, Il) received an American Chemical Society Analytical Division Undergraduate Award. This award is given to a rising junior or senior to recognize students who display an aptitude for a career in analytical chemistry. The award consists of an 8-month subscription in the Division of Analytical Chemistry for a like period. (Awarded in May 2006)

Robert Arthur Lalane (Boynton Beach, FL) and Lauren Kelly Shea (Fairfax Station, VA) received Merck Index Awards. These awards are given to an AB or BS candidate who has maintained a truly distinguished academic record and intends to pursue advanced study in medicine. The award consists of a copy of the Merck Index.

Andrea Kirkpatrick (Georgetown, SC) received a Department of Chemistry Award. This award is given to a BS candidate who has participated in Independent Study, maintained a truly distinguished academic record and intends to pursue advanced study in chemistry. The award consists of a one-year student membership in the American Chemical Society and a one-year subscription to an appropriate journal published by ACS.

Drew Joel Schwartz (Waverly Hall, GA) received a Hypercube Scholar Award. This award is given to a BS chemistry major who has maintained an outstanding academic record and plans to pursue graduate study in an area of chemistry which utilizes molecular modeling extensively. The award consists of a molecular modeling computer software package which is generously donated by Hypercube Inc.

Computer Science

Tiffany Chen received the Alex Vasilos Memorial Award for her work in support of the undergraduate program in computer science at all levels and for her excellent work crossing interdisciplinary boundaries in biology and computer science.

Katherine Elizabeth Trushkowsky received the Alex Vasilos Memorial Award for her work in computer science courses culminating with a project for which she is awarded her degree with high distinction.

Benjamin Ross Wolf received the Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Award in recognition of his overall excellence and leadership.

Council for Arts

William "Billy" Kennedy from the Department of English, and Martin Zimmerman from the Department of Theater Studies, shared this year's Sudler Prize in the Creative and Performing Arts. Established by Chicago industrialist Louis Sudler, the award is presented annually to the graduating senior who has demonstrated the most distinguished record of excellence in performance or creation in music, theater, painting, dance, design, film, creative writing, and other areas of the arts.

The Edward H. Benenson Awards in the Arts are given annually to undergraduate students to broaden their educational and professional objectives in the Arts. The awards are made on a competitive basis for the most outstanding project proposals and are determined by a special committee appointed by the Dean of Trinity College. This year's winners are:

Michael Ayers, a 2007 Graduate of Duke University from Cullowhee, North Carolina, will participate in a 10-month acting internship with the B Street Theater in Sacramento, California. Thanks to a Benenson Award, he will continue Dance and Voice lessons for the year and will attain an Actors Equity Association membership card at the end of the internship.

Daniel Bischoff of Scottsdale, class of 2007, will attend a summer program at the Accademia dell'Arte Arezzo in Arezzo, Italy. He will use the Benenson Award funds to work on improvisation, voice and movement skills, and further study the mask and how it relates to the discipline of theater.

Alessa Colaianni from San Juan, Puerto Rico graduates in 2007 and will enroll in an intensive two-week training course at The Second City in Chicago. This comedy organization offers conservatory training in improvisational techniques as well as comedy writing. She will use the experience to help bring premium-quality sketch comedy to Duke University next year through Inside Joke. Sarah Dickens of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, graduates in May 2007. She travels to Phnom Pehn for her project, "Witnessing the Cambodian Genocide in Cambodia's Visual Culture." She will study visual expressions of the culture of trauma, and how visual culture helps create and sustain collective memory as a process of healing.

Rebekah Fergusson, a 2007 Graduate of Duke University from Charlotte, North Carolina, will use the Benenson Award to film a Documentary on the Pick-up Soccer Culture of Brazil. It will be a visual piece centered on Brazilian youth who re-enact the highlights of games they've seen on television.

Jessica Figueroa of Woodbridge, Virginia, graduating in December 2007, travels to Japan to continue exploration of that visual culture. In "Go Go Tokyo," her adventures will be documented as she attempts to achieve various sorts of minor fame using the alter ego of a person of great importance. A photographic exhibit at Duke University will follow.

Jinson "Patricia" Kim from Fairfax, Virginia, graduates in May 2007. Creative writing meets digital photography in her project, "Family as People: Renovating Stereotypes within the Home." She will create a body of work about her family, exploring the many ways they serve each other and share unconditional love. The finished piece will be a photographic portfolio in the form of a book.

Talya Lieberman, a May 2007 graduate of Duke University, has applied for an internship at the Eastern Music Festival. Building on her minor in Music, she will use the Benenson Award funds to prepare for Graduate School in Music. She will attend the International Trumpet Guild Conference, study at the Mendez Brass Institute, and take trumpet lessons all summer.

Brian McGinn of Palo Alto, Calif., will use his Benenson Award funds to make a feature-length documentary, "Home of Magic," about Thomas Midgley. Midgley rocked the scientific world by leading in the discovery of Ethyl gasoline and inventing Freon in three days, but died of polio at age 55.

Anita Pai will graduate from Duke University in May of 2008. She uses the Benenson Award to produce a piece called, "A Maiden Voyage: Artistic and Theoretical Explorations of Bharatanatyam Choreography." The classical Indian dance form is native to the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. After extensive study of the form, Pai will choreograph a Bharatanatyam dance while studying at the Kala Nivedanam School in Nashville, Tennessee.

Daniel Riley, a May, 2008 graduate from Manhattan Beach, California, is going to spend the summer working in New York City as an unpaid intern at Radar magazine and working on his English creative thesis, a book of 12 short stories. In addition, the Benenson Award makes it possible for him to pursue the goal of rewriting and marketing a feature screenplay done with a co-writer last summer.

Summer Robins of Douglasville, Georgia plans to use the Benenson Award funds to study commercial and concert dance at the esteemed Edge Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles, California.

Clare Sackler from Greenwich, Connecticut graduates in May, 2007 and will shoot and edit "Cine/Film," a parallel documentary portrait of two recently graduated women starting their professional lives in very different film industries. The second sequence of the documentary will be Clare's personal experience as she moves to Los Angeles to begin work in films.

Erica Sherman, a May 2007 graduate of Duke University, combines her talent for photography with her training as an architect. She will use Benenson Award funds to travel to England and France and produce "Flyers, Spires and the Quest for Illumination: A Photographic Investigation of Gothic Architecture."

Sarah Weber of Woodward, Iowa, graduates in May, 2007. This summer, the Benenson Award will make it possible for her to rewrite and edit some of the stories she's produced throughout her undergraduate career at Duke University. The stories will be compiled into a collection of twenty of the best, available in August.

Martin Zimmerman is a May 2007 graduate from Rockville, Maryland. His "Dirty War Play" explores the idea of forgiveness, and whether someone who committed crimes against humanity can atone and become a fully human member of society again. He will travel to Argentina, do interviews, and visit the offices of societies for the disappeared, including Las Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo, mothers and grandmothers of those kidnapped while the Dirty War was at its peak.

Cultural Anthropology

Claire Dietrich and Scott Sorrell won the 2007 Paul Farmer Award for Justice and Social Responsibility.

Maryam Shadee Malaklou and Marianne Tzu-Chwen Twu received the Judith McDade Prize in Cultural Anthrology.

Dance

Quinn Lipton received the Julia Wray Memorial Dance Award.

Divinity School

Steven D. Johnson II andMaureen Knudsen Langdoc received the Jameson Jones Preaching Award. The award is named for a former dean of the school.

Bryan William Langdocwon the Hoyt Hickman Award for Excellence in Liturgics as judged by divinity faculty.

Jill Suzanne Hicks and Andrew Michael Rowell were recipients of the Outstanding Students in Bible Awards.

Bryan Conrad Baker received the McMurry S. Richey Outstanding Student in Field Education Award.

Michelle Marie Shrader and Chanequa Walker-Barnes won the McMurry S. Richey Outstanding Students in Mission Award.

Melinda Suzanne Penry received the McMurry S. Richey Outstanding Student Pastor Award.

Hannah Adair Bonner received the John H. Ness Award for the Best Seminary Paper on Methodist History Broadly Conceived.

Matthew Berke Rawle won the Seminarian Award of the Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts.

Documentary Studies

Sritha Nukalapati Reddy received the Julia Harper Day Award for Documentary Studies.

Economics

Two students jointly won the 2007 Allen Starling Johnson, Jr. Best Thesis Prize, which carries a cash prize of $500: Tzuo Hann Law, for his work with Professor George Tauchen on "The Elusiveness of Systematic Jumps." Tzuo's hometown is Taiping, Malaysia. R. Selin Dilmener, for her work with Professor Huseyin Yildirim on "A Theory of Evacuation as Coordination Problem." Selin's hometown is Istanbul, Turkey. Dilmener's work also won the Outstanding Research Prize ($500) at the 5th Annual Economics Student Union Undergraduate Research Symposium. The Symposium invites undergraduates from across North Carolina to present their research. Andrew Nowobilski earned the Runner-up Prize ($250) for his work with Professor Frank Sloan on "Running from Money? The puzzle of bars and liquor stores locating in black neighborhoods." Andrew's hometown is O'Fallon, IL.

Two economics juniors, Andrey Fradkin and Paul Slattery, were named as Davies Fellows, and will receive $6,000 each to conduct independent research this summer, leading to the production of an Honors Thesis. The fellowship is named in honor of the late Dr. David Davies, a Duke economics professor from 1961 until his retirement in 1991. Dr. Davies is remembered for his passionate advocacy of undergraduate instruction and research. Fradkin will work with Professor George Tauchen in the area of high frequency financial data analysis. His hometown is Fair Lawn, NJ. Slattery will work with Professor Craufurd Goodwin in the area of the History of Political Economy. Paul's hometown is Sioux Falls, SD.

Education

The Winfred Quinton Holton Prize in Education went to Miho Kubagawa. Honorable mention went to Joiselle Cunningham, Rachel Saperstein and Danielle Wilfong.

Engineering

Nichole Axelrod and Claudia Fischmann received the American Society of Civil Engineers Prize.

Michael Humeniuk received the Raymond Gaugler Award.

Joanne Noble received the Helmholtz Award.

Amy Motomura received the International Honors Program.

Zaid Nasr Al-Husseini and Sophia Strike shared the Otto Meier Jr. Tau Beta Pi Award.

Claudia Fischmann received the Aubrey Palmer Award.

Nichole Axelrod and Todd Cobb shared the Eric Pas Award.

Todd Seaver received the Theo Pilkington Award.

David Walker received the Pi Tau Sigma Scholarship Award.

Benjamin Macadangdang received the Charles Seager Memorial Award. He also won the George Sherrerd III Memorial Award in Electrical Engineering.

Bibek Joshi received the William Brewster Snow Environmental Engineering Award.

Tzuo Hann Law received the Student Service Award.

English

Jinson Kim and Sarah Weber won the Anne Flexner Award for Fiction. Catherine Colaianni won second place.

Katheryn Feiereisel and Sarah Weber were awarded the Margot Hill Writing Support Grants.

Sarah Weber won the Margaret Rose Knight Sanford Scholarship.

Catherine Colaianni and Melanie Garcia won the Francis Pemberton Scholarship.

Kathryn Roberts won the Award for Outstanding Work in American Literature. Second place went to Caitlin Vandevander.

Bethany Allen won the Stanley E. Fish Award for Outstanding Work in British Literature.

Carly Knight and Caitlin Monjeau received the Barbara Herrnstein Smith Award for Outstanding Work in Literary Criticism or Theory.

Philip Sugg won the award for the Most Original English Honors Thesis.

Film/Video/Digital Program

Brian Grady McGinn received the Outstanding Undergraduate Filmmaker Award.

History

Lydia Wright won the LaPrade Prize for Outstanding Senior Honors Thesis for her thesis: "A Miner's Education: Schools in the Coal Company Towns of Southern West Virginia, 1863-1933". Her adviser was Karin Shapiro.

Amy Joseph won the Cannon Prize for Outstanding Graduating Senior.

Kenan Institute for Ethics

Kristina McDonald (Psychology) won the Kenan Dissertation Fellowship in Ethics, which is awarded annually to an advanced graduate student writing a dissertation with a substantial focus on ethics. Her dissertation is titled, "Interpretations and Belief Systems Associated with Revenge Motivations."

Laura Grattan (Political Science) won the Kenan Instructorship in Ethics, which is awarded annually to an advanced graduate or professional school student proposing to design and teach an undergraduate course with a substantial ethical focus in his or her area of expertise. Her course is titled, "Imagining Immigration: The Ethics and Politics of the Border."

Allison Dushane (English), Hagop Sarkissian (Philosophy), Jennifer Woodruff (Music), Amy Mariaskin (Psychology and Neuroscience) and Teresa Shewry (Literature) won Kenan Colloquium Fellowships in Ethics. The Kenan Graduate Colloquium is an interdisciplinary group of advanced graduate students who work contains a substantial focus on ethics.

Literature

Erin Greer, a senior from Indianapolis, Indiana, has been awarded the 2007 Bascom Headen Palmer Literary Prize for the best senior honors thesis in literary studies. This prize was established in honor of Judge Bascom Headen Palmer, who graduated from Trinity College in 1875 and won the Hesperian Literary Society's Medal of that year. This year the amount of the prize is $1,200.

Mathematics

Brandon Levin and James Zou won the Julia Dale Prize in Mathematics.

Jason Ferguson, Tirasan Khandhawit, Peng Shi and Lingren Zhang shared the Karl Menger Award.

A Duke Putnam Team came in eighth place in the international competition. The team members were Kshipra Bhawalkar, Nikifor Bliznashki and Lingren Zhang

Qianwei Li, Arnav Mehta, Aaron Wise, Nikifor Bliznashki, Arron Pollack, Russell Posner, Michael Bauer, Kshipra Bhawalkar and Matthew Edwards were members of Duke's Outstanding Math Contest in Modeling teams.

Matthew Rognlie, Peng Shi and Amy Wen were members of the Oustanding Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling team.

Music Department

Todd Hershberger won the William Klenz Prize in Music Composition for "Concerto for Free Improvising Alto Saxophonist and Jazz Orchestra."

Peter Magnuson received the Henry Schuman Music Prize "to a graduating senior for an original composition or a distinguished paper in music history or analysis" for "Ornamentation in the Organ Music of Bach." Honorable Mention went to Pulsar Li for an untitled composition.

Austin Chiang, violinist and concertmaster of the Duke Symphony Orchestra, won the Julia Wilkinson Mueller Prize for Excellence in Music "to a graduating senior of achievement in musical performance."

Political Science

Clare Lascelles and Alessandro Giuseppe-Torreao Morante won the Alona Evans Prize in International Law.

Jordan Kyle and Julia Rozenblit received the Elizabeth Verville Award.

Aaron Johnson won the Robert S. Rankin Award in American Government and Constitutional Law.

Johnathon Earl Schronce received the Robert S. Rankin Award in American National, State and Local Governments.

Joel Kliksberg, Sarah Kwak, Johannah McLean and Adam Mintz received the Robert S. Rankin American Government Award for Leadership and Academic Achievement.

Brian Itami won the Ole Holsti Award in American Foreign Policy and International Relations.

Psychology

Laura Fuhrman and Julia Goyer received the Zener Award for Outstanding Performance of an Undergraduate Major in Psychology.

Public Policy Studies

Andrew Nowobilski received the Joel Fleishman Distinguished Scholar Award.

Trisha Bailey, Jeannette Barajes and Eleanor Pishny received the Terry Sanford Leadership Award. Bailey has participated in the Healt Leadership Program, organized a community-based research project at the Women's Center and created forums for female Duke employees to interact with female undergraduates. Barajes was the founding chair of Duke's Chapter of UNIDOS, a national non-profit organization that educates and assists uninsured Hispanics and other groups. She also was co-president of Mi Gente, Duke's Latino Student Association. Pishny started an enterprise that encourages students to take unpaid, service-based summer internships with non-profit and community organizations. The program was developed as part of Tony Brown's Enterprising Leadership class.

Romance Studies

Bethany Allen and Alison Bilz received the Robert Niess/Alexander Hull Award in French.

Kimberly Ann Gordon received the Richard L. Predmore Award in Spanish.

Theater Studies

Russell Hainline received the Harold Brody Award for Excellence in Musical Theater.

Martin Zimmerman won the John M. Clum Distinguished Theater Studies Graduate Award.

Shaun Dozier, Danny Bischoff, Sarah Ellis, Madeleine Lambert and Kyle Knight received Alex Cohen Awards for Summer Initiatives in Theater.

Judd Schlossberg received the Dasha Epstein Award in Playwriting.

Julie Berger won the Dale B. J. Randall Award in Dramatic Literature.

Josh Posen won the Kenneth J. Reardon Award for Theater Design, Management or Production.

Michael Ayers won the Richard E. Cytowic Award for Outstanding Acting.

Corey Sobel received the Reynolds Price Award for Scriptwriting.

Paul Reid won the Jody McAuliffe Award for Excellence in Directing.

University Awards

Faculty Scholars Award

The Faculty Scholar Award is a highest award given by faculty to undergraduates. This year's winners are Joseph Babcock (Biology and Chemistry) and James Zou (Mathematics and Physics). The award honors seniors with impressively high overall Grade Point Average and who show the potential for innovative scholarship.

Honorable Mention went to Julie Goyer (Psychology and Physics), Brandon Levin (Mathematics) and Amy Motomura (Biomedical Engineering).

Wallace Wade Scholarship Winners

Laura Stanley received her Bachelor of Science degree from Duke in December 2006, having completed a major in Psychology and a minor in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy. While at Duke she was co-caption of women's cross country and track and field team. Her extensive community service activities included tutoring of elementary school students, coaching high school track athletes, volunteering at Ronald McDonald House and with "Women Build for Habitat for Humanity." In fall 2007 she will begin the Ph.D. program in physical therapy at Duke.

Alexander Wade graduated from Duke in December 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts and Highest Distinction in History, his major. In his final semester he also served as a research assistant at the Research Triangle Institute. He was captain of the Duke football team and after graduation, played professional football for the National Football League's Cincinnati Bengals in 2004. He then worked with the National Youth Leadership Forum Corporation and the United BioSource Corporation. In fall 2007 he will enter the School of Medicine at Duke.

Samuel DuBois Cook Awards

Three Duke students were winners of the Samuel DuBois Cook Awards for affirming the presence of African Americans at Duke:

Nirmala Chilamkurti, a public policy major, who co-founded the Durham chapter of Operation Snowball, a substance abuse prevention and leadership program for teens;

Luke Stewart, a mathematics and computer science double major and varsity track athlete, who did a research project on forecasting AIDS rates in Belize; and

Xing Zong, a graduate student in physics and part-time correspondent with the People's Daily Online in China, who runs the DukeChina.org website that connects students in China to Duke.

The Mary Duke Biddle Summer Internships in Museum Studies

Three Duke students have received the Mary Duke Biddle Summer Internship in Museum Studies award, which provides financial support for students interested in museum careers to participate in summer internships at major art museums in the United States and abroad.

Laura Dickey ('08) will work in the Drawings Department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, assisting with a Seurat exhibition and conductive provenance research.

Jennifer Morris ('08) will conduct research and write gallery materials at the Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago for its reinstallation of the permanent collection in fall 2007.

Laura Fravel ('09) will be at the Nasher Museum at Duke University engage in collection research and special exhibition projects, including the upcoming exhibitions of "New at the Nasher," and "Taste of the Modern: Rothko, Rauschenberg, Oldenburg, Kline."

Heather Huskey was one of four Visual Arts students selected to appear in the 2007 Graduation with Distinction exhibition how showing at the ACT Smith Warehouse at Duke. Heather will probably go on to graduate school, but is taking a year off to teach photography at a school in the Dominican Republic.

Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award

Students Ben Abram and Trisha Bailey were the 2007 co-recipient of the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award from Duke University. This award seeks to perpetuate the excellence of character and humanitarian service of Algernon Sydney Sullivan by recognizing and honoring such qualities in others.

Student Affairs Distinguished Leadership and Service Awards

Mike Higgins; Jeannette Barajas; Daniel Bowes; Miho Kubagawa; David Edwards; and Danielle Plattenburg

William J. Griffith University Service Awards

The William J. Griffith Service Award is presented to students whose contributions to the Duke and larger communities have made a significant impact on university life. Those students whose efforts demonstrate an understanding of the responsibilities of effective university and civic citizenship are eligible for this award:

Benjamin Abram; Alexander Apple; Lissett Babaian; Jeannette Barajas; Zachary Bencan; David Brown; Chloe Chien; Damjan Denoble; David Edwards; Joe Fore; Lauren Garson

Mike Higgins; Adair Hill; Shian Ling Keng; Miho Kubagawa; Felix Li; Shadee Malaklou; Michael Marquardt; Doha Mekki; Chauncey Nartey; Jessica Palacios

Danielle Plattenburg; Mitha Rao