Science Achievement Graduate Fellowship
2023–2024
The Penn State Eberly College of Science has selected seven graduate students as Science Achievement Graduate Fellows for 2022–2023. These scholarships are awarded each year to outstanding graduate students seeking a doctoral degree in each of the college’s seven departments who are interested in the advancement of women in the sciences and related fields. The scholarships were established in 2018 to recognize students who have a record of significant professional achievements in their field and who are role models for other students in the college. Each scholarship is named in honor of an outstanding woman scientist or mathematician who not only made groundbreaking discoveries but also blazed the trial for others who have followed in their footsteps. Fellows in the program will host two distinguished lectures each year in the college, in honor of the women for whom the scholarships are named.
Recipients of the 2023–2024 scholarships:
Laura Duffy is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. She received her B.S. in Physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2020. She is broadly interested in extragalactic phenomena and has lately been spending her time researching the accretion disks around the supermassive black holes that lie at the centers of active galaxies as well as the interactions between those black holes and their host galaxies. Laura is also highly involved in her department’s Climate and Diversity committee and has been working to help undergraduates in her department have a good experience throughout their time at Penn State.
Katie Yan is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and graduate student in Biology at the Pennsylvania State University where she is advised by Katriona Shea. Her research focuses on how messages about infectious diseases can influence human behavior to reduce disease transmission using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods from biology, mathematics, and communications. She earned B.A.s in Mathematics and Biology from Skidmore College, receiving honors and academic awards in both disciplines. She is also a Graduate Student Intern in the Office of Communications at in the Eberly College of Science where she edits the graduate student newsletter, writes news articles, and prepares press reports. In addition, she is the webmaster for the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics (CIDD) Graduate Student Association at Penn State and the social media intern for CIDD.
Jordan Wenning is interested in researching cell signaling and protein structure. She grew up in Schwenksville, PA. After graduating from Temple University in Philadelphia with a B.S. in Biochemistry and a minor in Spanish, she is now a first-year graduate student in the Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology (BMMB) program. Jordan has a broad research background, including work in physical chemistry, deep-sea ecology, and cell biology. She hopes to use her experiences in tutoring and leading a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) outreach team to become a professor that will inspire the next generation of scientists.
Kallie Zanders, a graduate student in chemistry and NSF GRFP Fellow, is interested in bioinorganic chemistry, specifically metalloenzymes. She participated in an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in 2021 at Penn State studying the degradation of atrazine, an herbicide, by Pseudomonas sp. Strain ADP as a biofilm. She then went on to complete a Summer Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) at the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory studying the kinetics and thermodynamics of a flavin-based electron bifurcating enzyme, NADH-dependent ferredoxin:NADP+-oxidoreductase (NfnSL). During her undergraduate years, she studied the production of siderophores in extremophile marine fungi and bacteria as well as Klebsiella pneumoniae. Kallie graduated with honors from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma where she served as a tutor and a member of various organizations. Outside of the laboratory and the classroom, Kallie is passionate about ensuring accessibility of STEM careers for underrepresented groups, undergraduate research, and mentoring younger students.
Yuchen Jiang, a graduate student in mathematics, is interested in studying problems related to algebra and topology. In particular, she enjoys working on theoretical problems inspired by real-life applications. For instance, one of her previous research projects includes generalizing extended persistence matching to radial filtration settings, which could be implemented in various neuronal structure analysis. She completed her Bachelor of Mathematical Sciences (Advanced) at the University of Adelaide and her Master of Mathematical Sciences (Advanced) at the Australian National University, where she was also a demonstrator for proof-based first year linear algebra and analysis courses.
Emma Steinebronn (she/her) is a third-year physics Ph.D. candidate with a passion for sharing her love of science. She earned her B.S. in Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Florida where she found her passion for electronics. Emma now investigates emergent electronic states in thin film heterostructures grown via molecular beam epitaxy in the Samarth group here at Penn State. As the outreach chair of Physics and Astronomy for Women+, Emma has founded an outreach program, PAW Pals, with over 80 volunteers teaching science at the local elementary schools. In her free time, she loves to hike in the Adirondacks, play with her cat Winnie (named after Erwin Schrödinger), drink tea, and play board games.
Kaitlyn Webb is a graduate student in the Department of Statistics pursuing a Statistics Ph.D. with a dual title in Social Data Analytics. She is advised by Dr. Aleksandra Slavković and her research focuses on statistical data privacy, such as formal and differential privacy, with interests in applications to social sciences, especially in government statistics, political science, and economics. Webb served as the Statistics Graduate Student Association (SGSA) president during the 2022-2023 academic year and currently is involved in organization and communication for the Women+ in Statistics and Data Science group on campus. Before coming to Penn State, Webb served as a graduate intern for Sandia National Lab’s Wind Energy Group doing data analysis for a study on leading edge erosion in wind turbines. She received her B.S. in Mathematics and Statistics from Purdue University in December 2017 with a minor in Economics.