2024 Biology Student Award Winners

Zim Warda Hasan
Outstanding Graduate Student

Zim’s thesis research in Dr. Noah Ashley’s lab involves assessing the effects of glucocorticoid blockade on murine inflammatory responses to sleep fragmentation. She is the recipient of the highly competitive OCSE Graduate Research Fellowship and has submitted her thesis research to a peer-reviewed journal. Zim is originally from Bangladesh where she earned her Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from Dinajpur Medical College in 2019. She is interviewing for several PhD programs involving immunology and neuroscience and envisions herself as a professor at a medical school with both clinical and basic research responsibilities.

Jerica Eaton
Dillard/Hoyt Award for Outstanding First-Year Graduate Student

Jerica is an excellent student and has performed well in her first year in graduate school. Her thesis work in Dr. Jarrett Johnson’s lab evaluates the effects of two commonly used herbicides (Roundup and Atrazine) on growth, development, and dynamics of salamander, zooplankton, and algal populations using outdoor experimental mesocosms. Jerica hopes to reveal understudied aspects of herbicide exposure such as community-level indirect effects and alterations to genetic diversity. Jerica is supported by a Biotech Center ARTP graduate research assistantship and has applied to several external agencies to secure funding for her project.

Josie Griffith
Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant

Josie is consistently well-prepared, on time, and follows through with lab set-up and grading. She has made significant contributions to a new lab manual ensuring that new protocols are clear for the students and well connected to the course objectives. Josie consistently thinks about what will work best from the student perspective. She balances an understanding of their naivete with a desire to challenge them and encourage growth. She is a confident educator who is calm and reassuring, and students respond well to her. She helps them feel confident and comfortable enough to enjoy the lab and learn the content.

Vivian Rivera
Outstanding Undergraduate Student

Vivian is an honors student working in the lab of Dr. Joseph Marquardt investigating how phytochemicals thought to be anti-cancerous affect the proliferation and stress response in budding yeast. She presented her work at KAS and was awarded a top-scoring rubric in the microbiology division. She is extremely involved on campus and in the Bowling Green community. She is the president of the Ecology and Conservation Club, volunteers her time at Lost River Cave, and is an Honors College Ambassador. She has applied to multiple graduate programs and plans to pursue a PhD in pharmacology related fields.

Natalie Heath
Outstanding Biodiversity Student
Gleason Award for Undergraduate Research

Natalie completed a rigorous wildlife capture course in South Africa, then stayed to collect data for her Honors thesis, dodging lions and elephants while live-trapping rodents to examine the effects of prescribed burns on the prey base for the predator food web. Natalie proved to be mature beyond her years. She worked well with people from at least four countries and mother tongues. She is well-organized and a planner. She is completing her Honors thesis in Dr. Mike Stokes’ lab, which she has already presented at the Kentucky Academy of Sciences meeting. Natalie plans a career as a wildlife biologist.

Naiya Sims
Outstanding Biotechnology Student
Lancaster Award for Pre-Medical Student

Naiya is an exceptional biology student with a pre-medical concentration. She has been accepted into UK for medical school and will start this fall. Naiya has been active in many clubs including AED, Conservation Club, Chess Club, Horticulture Club, and TriBeta. She is also a Certified Medicaid Nurse Aide and works as an Advanced Care Technician at Greenview Hospital. Naiya is conducting honors thesis research in Dr. Jarrett Johnson’s lab on patterns of genetic variation in spider beetles, using whole-genome next-generation-sequence data. Naiya was awarded a FUSE grant and an honors development grant to support her work.

Briana Harness
Skean Award for Microbiology Student

Briana is an honors student and a Louis Stokes Minority Program Scholar. In the lab of Dr. Simran Banga, Briana worked on various projects including the antimicrobial effect of silver nanoparticles on Staphylococcus aureus and the effect of photodynamic treatment on biofilms of S. aureus. She received a FUSE award and has presented her findings at several conferences. Briana is also a co-author on a publication with Dr. Banga. Besides working in the laboratory, Briana has served as a tutor and teaching assistant. She plans to pursue a degree in clinical research.