Khan Selected as Student Marshal for Eberly College of Science

Ansar Khan, son of Shamshad and Rehana Khan of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, will be honored as the Eberly College of Science student marshal during summer commencement ceremonies on Saturday, 13 August 2005, at the Penn State University Park campus.

Khan, who will be completing a major in biology with a vertebrate physiology option, is enrolled in the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State and has earned a 3.89 grade-point average. He says, "The most important lesson I will take with me from my time at Penn State is that hard work is very rewarding."

Khan has been involved in research with John Edgar Smith, associate professor of human nutrition at Penn State, and with Donald Wachowski, formerly on the faculty of the Department of Veterinary Science. He also had a Cooperative Extension assignment from December 2003 to January 2005, during which he studied drug-dose-rate control in the New Product Development division of Johnson & Johnson-McNeil Pharmaceutical Research and Development. He continues to work in this position as an intern for the remainder of the summer. After graduation, he will continue his studies at Temple Medical School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

For his honors thesis, Khan synthesized vitamin-A derivatives that might potentially be used as markers to extract and purify vitamin-A receptors from highly polarized cells, called enterocytes, which transfer nutrients across the intestinal wall and into tissues.

Khan's academic achievements have been recognized with the President's Freshman Award, a President Sparks Award, a Frank C. Kostos Award, a Scholars Lion Award, and a Golden Key Scholar Award from Golden Key National Honor Society. He also received the Bayard and Ethel Kunkle Endowed Scholarship, a Bayzick Scholarship, a Cooper Scholarship, the Jane Metz and Donald W. Strickler Scholarship, a Gibbons Farrell Trustee Scholarship, a University Scholars Program Scholarship, and a Stroudsburg Area School District Drehar Scholarship.

In addition to his academic achievements, Khan also has been active in the Muslim Student Association, the student government, and the Lion Ambassadors at Penn State.

A graduate of Stroudsburg High School in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Khan will be accompanied at graduation by his father Shamshad Khan, younger brother Azeem Khan, and other extended family members. He has selected John E. Smith, associate professor of human nutrition, to be his faculty escort for the commencement exercises.