Matasic Named 2010 Co-op Student of the Year

The Science Career and International Education office in the Eberly College of Science is proud to announce that Daniel Matasic of West Chester, Pennsylvania, has been selected as the recipient of the 2010 Co-op Student of the Year Award. The award recognizes students’ academic achievements and contributions to their employers, the University, the community, and the field of cooperative education.

Matasic, a student in the Science BS/MBA program, was nominated by Kevin Thorneloe of GlaxoSmithKline.  He was a co-op student in the Biology – Heart Failure DPU Department during the spring and summer of 2010. Dan’s greatest achievement was spearheading the improvement of a rat in vivo pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic model to evaluate drug efficacy. He developed, validated and implemented the new procedure that is currently being used, and a publication based on his work is currently in preparation.

Matasic also completed a summer 2009 co-op rotation with Fox Chase Cancer Center’s Medical Oncology Department.   His work there involved mutational analysis of genes with copy number aberrations in gastrointestinal stromal tumors.

Matasic will complete his undergraduate coursework this year and will enter the MBA program in Fall 2011.

Information about the Penn State Eberly College of Science Cooperative Education Program is available at http://cie.science.psu.edu/