Student Awards

Rafat Azadl, computer science major/anthropology minor in his senior year, has won a Fulbright Grant to do advanced research and graduate study on Islamic culture and ideology and environmental conservation in Bangladesh next year. He received the grant through the Islamic Civilization Initiative, which is designed to enhance the knowledge and understanding of the history and culture of Islam. His project focuses on how Islam affects wildlife conservation in Bangladesh. Azad will be interning in Tunisia this summer as part of his Jeanette K. Watson fellowship, which he won three years ago.

Alexandra Bowman, a senior majoring in English and geology, has been awarded a 2007 Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This provides up to two years of academic assistance and career development training in oceanic and atmospheric science, research, technology, and education. Bowman recently presented a poster at the Science and Engineering Conference at the CUNY Graduate Center, Sigma Xi. She will soon be attending the Long Island Geologists Conference in Stony Brook and the Urban Conference at City College. She hopes to get a master’s degree in geology.

Victor Chavez and Chikodi Emerenini received the CUNY Student Leadership Award at a ceremony in Manhattan on May 2. Chavez, who came to this country from Colombia when he was eight years old, and Emerenini, a Nigerian national who immigrated in 1998, were recognized for their outstanding leadership skills in both academic and service-related activities in the past year.

Miriam Ginzberg, an honors chemistry major in her junior year, has won the Goldwater Scholarship, which recognizes outstanding math, science, and engineering sophomores and juniors. She aspires to teach and conduct research in pharmaceutical materials science, a field that focuses on using nanotechnology to develop medical advances such as biosensors and improved drug-delivery systems. Ginzberg also just received a Rockefeller University Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, which will allow her to work on lab research projects with some of the country’s leading scientists.

Melissa Resnick (GSLIS), who is graduating with an MLS, has been selected as an associate fellow of the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD. She holds an MS in biopsychology from Rensselaer and a BS in biology from the University at Albany. Her work in that school’s teratology lab led to the publication of an article in Neurotoxicology & Teratology. Resnick’s achievements are all the more remarkable as she has been blind since birth.