2009 Recipients of The Deans' Award for Academic Accomplishment
On This Page:
Jonathan Dorsey
'09, Human Biology
Jonathan Dorsey, a senior majoring in Human Biology, has compiled a truly remarkable record of service. He has volunteered at a Zambian refugee camp; organized and led an Alternative Spring Break class on Changemakers – Perspectives on Public Service Leadership; and he has started not one, but two, non-governmental organizations devoted to public service: FACE AIDS and Global Health Corps.
After spending the summer after his freshman year in
Zambia with an NGO called Forge, Jonny and two other students started an organization to raise funds in support of HIV in Africa. They have raised well over a million dollars for FACE AIDS, which currently has volunteers at 150 schools. Jonny returned to school and shared his experiences in public service. His thoughtful presentations and enthusiasm inspire many of his fellow students to become involved in their own public service projects.
Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology Robert Siegel judges Jonny to be “one of the most extraordinary undergraduates I have met in over a quarter of a century of teaching at Stanford…. Jonny is a person with vision and that vision involves social activism to confront local and global challenges and transform the world. Jonny is charismatic and passionate and he can draw people to his causes. He exemplifies the highest ideals of Stanford.”
|
Benjamin Eppler '09, History |
Benjamin Eppler is a senior completing an ambitious joint major in History with honors and Economics and is honored for his extraordinary academic achievements in history research.
Working with History Professor Philippe Buc, Ben produced a brilliant paper on the fourth crusade of 1202-1204 and the crusade against the Albigensians (preached 1209). Professor Buc cites Ben’s “insightful argu-ment that the first expedition ultimately made culturally and religiously possible the second crusade of 1209, which targeted heretics located in Southern France and the nobles who tolerated or abetted them.”
Ben earned a UAR Major Grant for the summer of 2008, which funded his research for his History honors thesis on the infrastructure of British imperial control in the Persian Gulf during the years from 1919-1939. Associate Professor of History Jessica Riskin supported Ben’s grant proposal, writing that he “indelibly imprinted himself on my and my TA’s memory as the author of the most sensational final exam either of us had seen before or since. It was a model of precision, detail, and elegant exposition – in an in-class exam!”
|
Alexander Fenner '09, Classics |
Alexander Fenner is honored for his academic excellence across disciplines and for his extraordinary contributions in his major, Classics with honors in Ancient History. His senior thesis examines the parallels between Roman imperial policies towards the ancient annexed kingdoms with modern British policies in 19th-century India, using the British national heroine Boudicea as a case study.
His thesis advisor, Classics Assistant Professor Giovanna Ceserani, de-scribes him as “the type of student that professors dream of having in their classes, and that fellow students easily admire and take as an inspiration.” Alexander’s thesis, for which he has done extensive archival research in Edinburgh during the summer, is described by Professor Ceserani as “one of unprecedented scale” and impressive in terms of “organizational skills, intuitive brilliance and rigor of analysis.”
Professor of Art History and Classics Jody Maxmin described Alexander’s work in her classical Greek art class as “…of a quality one yearns for in art historical texts, but often fails to find. Alex Fenner is that rare student who raises the level on which lecture courses and seminars are conducted… and guarantees that his teacher will aim high and hope to produce something worthy of his extraordinary intellect.”
|
Max Kleiman-Weiner '09, Biological Sciences |
Max Kleiman-Weiner is a senior majoring in Biological Sciences with honors in neurobiology. He is honored for his brilliant work as a researcher, a teaching assistant, lecturer, and editor for both the Stanford Journal of Neuroscience and The Stanford Philosophy Journal – The Dualist.
As a freshman, Max joined the Thalamocortical Synchrony and Epilepsy group in Professor John Huguenard’s Neurosciences lab. Professor Huguenard writes: “He is in that rarified class of ultra-creative, energetic, and intelligent undergraduate students that chooses to deeply immerse themselves in scientific research at an early age. He mastered the complex neurophysiological techniques required for this research very early on.”
Working closely with Professor Huguenard, Max explored regulation of neural network oscillations. His work will result in an important first-authored publication that has been submitted to the Journal of Neuro-physiology. Max also performed experiments and analyzed the results on altered thalamic activity in a mouse model of neurologic disease which is scheduled to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science this week. According to Professor Huguenard, “This is unprecedented, and I expect Max to continue his meteoric rise for the foreseeable future.” He was also nominated by Russell Fernald, professor of Biological Sciences.
|
Katherine Meadows '09, Philosophy |
Katherine Meadows is a senior with a major in Philosophy with honors and a minor in Mathematics. She is honored for her brilliant work in Philosophy, including research on The Psychology of the Pyrrhonian Skeptic, for which Katherine was awarded a UAR Major Grant in 2008.
In support of her UAR grant proposal, Philosophy Professor Chris Bobonich noted Katherine’s exceptional achievements in courses relevant to her research, and her exemplary work as his research assistant, writing that Katherine “is a truly exceptional student” who “will be among the few very best ancient philosophy graduate students that I have seen in my career.” Professor Bobonich observed Katherine’s written work in two graduate-level courses, remarking that “she has familiarized herself with the relevant scholarship and shows great ingenuity in developing new lines of argument” and concludes, “Katy is already more at the level of a faculty colleague than an undergraduate or even graduate student.”
German Studies Professor Allen Wood concurs, noting that “Katy is one of those students you remember. . .” and that “my experience working with her was more like teaching new material to a first year graduate student than to an undergraduate.”
|
Lauren Smith '09, Human Biology |
Lauren Smith, a senior majoring in Human Biology, is honored for her extraordinary commitment and passion for studying infectious disease. She has pursued her dream of being an infectious disease specialist and plague fighter methodically and passionately in coursework and in research. She has undertaken the most difficult courses and invigorated her classmates and instructors with innovative, creative presentations and questions.
As a freshman, Lauren worked in the laboratory of Professor of Medicine David Relman, carrying out total RNA extractions of Ebola-exposed monocytes to be used for microarray analysis. The following summer, she worked in Dr. Kate Rubins’ lab at the Whitehead Institute at MIT, in part funded by a UAR Major Grant. Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology Robert Siegel notes that Lauren’s “remarkable honors thesis, Treatment with IFN-Beta prolongs survival in primates with Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, is the first comprehensive survey of the effects of the interferon activity upon Ebola-infected cells.”
Lauren is a brilliant researcher, scholar, and leader on campus, who, according to Professor Siegel, her academic advisor in Human Biology, is “a constellation of personal characteristics: intelligence, strong academic preparation, willingness to take the initiative, and excellent organizational skills” who shows “remarkable gusto for life in general.”
|
Mindi Summers '09, Geological and Environmental Sciences |
Mindi Summers, a senior in Geological and Environmental Sciences, is honored for her exceptional work on multiple major research projects in a broad spectrum of the natural sciences.
Mindi’s first research foray followed her very first GES course in her fresh-man year, studying the recovery of foraminifera (a group of marine protists) following a major mass extinction event. This culminated, a year later, with a presentation at the national meeting of the Geological Society of America, and her work is part of a manuscript now under review for the journal Paleobiology. In pursuing her research, Mindi has been the recipient of UAR Small, Quarterly, and Conference Travel Grants.
In her sophomore year, Mindi enrolled in a study abroad program in New Zealand, where she began the research project that would eventually become her honors thesis, collecting ground-penetrating radar on a beach in order to relate changes in coastal morphology to sedimentary and tectonic influences.
Mindi’s recommenders, GES Professors Anne Egger, Stephan Graham, and Jonathan Payne write: “Mindi is truly exceptional and we feel privileged to have watched her grow and mature as a person and scientist over the past four years.”|
Sylvia Tomiyama '09, Psychology |
Sylvia Tomiyama is a senior majoring in Psychology with honors and a minor in Biology and is honored for her brilliant contributions to research in neuroscience.
Her work analyzing the cognitive abilities in young children led to co-authorship of a recent manuscript entitled Standardized assessment of strategy use and working memory in early arithmetic performance (Wu et al., 2008), published in the journal Developmental Neuropsychology.
Working with Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Associate Professor Vinod Menon, Sylvia has developed an innovative research project for her senior honors thesis that focuses on gender differences in the large-scale functional organization of the human brain. Professor Menon writes: “Her research is leading to new insights into the neural basis of sex differences in human brain function. This research has the potential to eventually inform us about differential vulnerability in the prevalence and course of psychiatric disorders such as autism and depression. Ms. Tomiyama is an outstanding student and brilliant young researcher. Her intellectual ability, dedication, work ethic, and inter-personal skills are in the top 1% of undergraduate students I have met at Stanford and Berkeley".