Student Scholar Spotlight – Elijah Hix

September 29, 2021 by bharve20

Student Scholar Spotlight – Elijah Hix

Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Elijah Hix

This spring, I was fortunate enough to be named one of the 2021 Goldwater Scholars in chemistry for my work on enzyme stereospecificity elucidation using a type-1 polyketide synthase ketoreductase. The Goldwater scholarship is the most prestigious award that an undergraduate in STEM research can earn and as such this is a huge boost to my early career! This entire process has served as a headfirst introduction into the work that goes into applying for other national fellowships such as NDSEG and the NSF-GRFP. All around I have learned so much by narrowing my research and being able to present it in an effective way and I am already getting to put these skills to the test as I am now applying for the aforementioned fellowships as well as graduate school applications.

In addition to the Goldwater, I also received an award of excellence at the 2021 UT EUReKa conference for my other research I conducted regarding mechanism elucidation of a tin centered porphyrin catalyst for electrocatalytic proton reduction. This proved to be a fantastically challenging project and helped me deepen my skills in quantum chemistry. With the tools I obtained I am now able to put them towards a fully independent project that will soon produce publishable work!

Even more recently than these awards, I was invited to give a talk at the Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium at Rice university. GCURS is one of the most prestigious undergraduate research conferences in the US. It pulls together many of the best researchers to learn from each other, see the state of research, and network and as such is a huge opportunity for me. I have presented my work at conferences in the past but nothing has come close to this and it will really help boost my career. I am excited to see what other people are doing in the world of chemistry and chemical biology and network with other undergraduate researchers.

Student Scholar Spotlight – Justin Edaugal

September 29, 2021 by bharve20

Student Scholar Spotlight – Justin Edaugal

Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Justin Edaugal

I was selected to be a fellow in the VI4 Artist-in-Residence program, a science-art collaboration among the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation, Vanderbilt University-Basic Sciences, and ArtLab. Twenty students across the nation were selected to participate in this remote fellowship. Fellows were in charge of creating art, graphical abstracts, and other visual media that communicated the research of their respective assigned labs. As a fellow, I collaborated with the David Lab from Duke University. The lab’s research investigates the human microbiome and its relationship with nutrition and disease.

My artwork will be used for their presentations, potential scientific journal cover art, and a digital exhibition.

Being a part of this fellowship was a dream come true! I have always had passions for both science and art and this remote fellowship allowed me the opportunity to directly merge the two, as well as give me the flexibility to complete summer classes and obtain clinical experience on the side. Studying the David Lab’s scientific literature while creating artwork showed me how both science and art go hand and hand. It challenged me to analyze and synthesize biological research from an interdisciplinary perspective and be able to communicate it through visual work. I’m extremely grateful for the VI4 Artist-in-Residence program and look forward

Student Scholar Spotlight – Taylor Dempsey

September 29, 2021 by bharve20

Student Scholar Spotlight – Taylor Dempsey

Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Taylor Dempsey

In spring 2020, I co-founded Students for Migrant Justice, a student group focused on educating campus about the immigration system, mobilizing on and off campus, and building power with student immigrants. SMJ has hosted events on the history of immigration law, local immigration policies, and how to get involved in the greater Knoxville community. We have also partnered with off-campus organizations, such as Adelante Knoxville, Allies of Knoxville’s Immigrant Neighbors, and ICE Out of East TN, to launch campaigns against local police-immigration collaboration programs. This year, we were recognized as the UT NAACP’s 2021 Organization of the Year and received the Outstanding Commitment to Inclusion Award from the Center for Student Engagement.

My work with Students for Migrant Justice has greatly enriched my time in the College Scholars Program. My program is titled “Migration Studies” and is a mix of sociology, political science, anthropology, geography, philosophy, and Hispanic studies. I study immigration policy and the specific ways local police collaborate with federal immigration enforcement to harm communities. Students for Migrant Justice has taught me more about the importance of local politics, community building, and public education. As I prepare my senior project—a report on the funding behind Knox County’s police-immigration collaboration—I will definitely utilize all of the lessons I learned from SMJ!

Student Scholar Spotlight – Ashlyn Anderson

September 29, 2021 by bharve20

Student Scholar Spotlight – Ashlyn Anderson

Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Ashlyn Anderson

One of the areas most affected by the global pandemic has been the food system. With the rising cost of food and loss of employment, the exponential increase in food insecurity and extreme hunger will continue to affect our world for many years to come. As a senior College Scholar, my program is titled “Food Security and Public Health Nutrition” and examines food accessibility and utilization in the context of agriculture, health, and the environment. The way COVID-19 has perpetuated public health crises related to food is a topic I’ve been able to learn about in the classroom, but this summer I was able to apply my knowledge directly to the implementation of the summer meals program in St. Louis, Missouri.

After a virtual internship with the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) last summer where I worked with food and nutrition policy in the context of pandemic-response legislation, I longed for an experience to witness these policies in action. I was awarded this opportunity in June when I was accepted as a Zero Hunger Intern along with 17 other students from across the country to participate in a 10-week internship program. This internship was facilitated by the Congressional Hunger Center, a DC-based nonprofit that allows food security advocates to gain work experience at an anti-hunger organization and develop professional skills to grow as a leader.

My internship placement was in St. Louis with an organization called Operation Food Search, where I was directly responsible for program implementation of the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), a federally funded nutrition program that provides nutritious meals to children under 18 when school is not in session. We utilized a drive-thru distribution model to distribute to-go children’s meals and produce boxes at six sites in the St. Louis area. I served as the on-site point person for SFSP by coordinating staff and volunteer assignments, acting as a community liaison to conduct outreach with more than 50 external partners, and managing intake of meal distribution data. In the months of June and July, we served 77,879 kids’ meals, which is an exponential increase from years past given the program flexibility enacted through federal policy.

This experience was not only rewarding for my personal growth and passion for anti-hunger advocacy, but also aligned directly with my College Scholars Program. Through College Scholars, I have been given the opportunity to explore food through an intersectional lens, to examine how systems of privilege and oppression affect food access. My insights this summer were enriched because of the interdisciplinary courses I’ve taken at UT, and the dialogue I’ve had across disciplines and departments. I am grateful for College Scholars as it has challenged me to look beyond simple solutions and leverage my learning towards real-world experiences; instilling a lifelong curiosity and appreciation for education.

At the Intersection of Art and Biological Sciences

September 29, 2021 by bharve20

At the Intersection of Art and Biological Sciences

Courtney Wombles (’20) graduated from the University of Tennessee’s College Scholars Program in May after pursuing a program titled Biomedical Visualization and Health Literacy. This program merged her passions for art and biological sciences to investigate how illustrations can be used to communicate medical information. Combined with a minor in biological sciences, her program integrated courses in biology, chemistry, information sciences, art, and design in an effort to analyze how the arts and humanities can communicate content from the hard sciences.

“Much of my program was inspired by my undergraduate work at Preston Medical Library, where I provided consumer health information, assisted with medical literature research, and witnessed the impact that medical illustration-based materials and health literacy can have within the healthcare environment,” Wombles said.

With the guidance of her academic advisors, Wombles crafted a thesis focused on medical illustrations as a tool for improving health literacy, which is defined as the ability of an individual to obtain, comprehend, and utilize information related to their health.

“I witnessed the prominence and negative effects associated with low health literacy while working at Preston Medical Library, and I was inspired to apply my academic studies to the real-world problem,” Wombles said.

She designed her thesis project as a response to the gap existing in patient education materials that are suitable for promoting health literacy. Currently, much of the information used to educate patients about their health is inaccessible, written at too high of a level, and too difficult to utilize by the average consumer. The final product of her thesis provided a series of biomedical visualization-based materials for consumer health education, which were meant to serve as readable and accessible health information resources. The five-part thesis project centered on the most prominent chronic diseases in the United States: diabetes, pulmonary diseases, kidney diseases, coronary artery diseases, and cancer—more specifically, cervical cancer. Each project utilized a different artistic medium and was created with readability, accuracy, organization, and accessibility in mind.

After graduation, Wombles pursued a graduate school education. She is entering her final semester in the UT’s Master of Science in Information Sciences program, where she studies the scientific information pathway. As the graduate research assistant at Preston Medical Library and a practicum student at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Wombles has continued to work with health literacy and the communication of medical information.

“My most recent project was the development and management of a graphic medicine collection for the UT Medical Center, which explores the interaction between the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare,” Wombles said.

Looking to her future, Wombles plans to continue her work at the intersections of art, design, science, literacy, education, and communication.

“Armed with two collegiate degrees and a Consumer Health Information Specialization from the National Library of Medicine, I hope to progress my research in an academic, medical, or scientific library environment,” Wombles said.

“No matter where I work or
pursue higher education in
the future, I always plan to
integrate the work I first
began as a member of the
College Scholars Program.”

Message from the Director – Fall 2021

September 29, 2021 by bharve20

Message from the Director – Fall 2021

Forging Ahead

Professor Jeffrey Kovac was the previous director of the College Scholars program and he has been extremely helpful to me as I took over the position last year, for which I am grateful. Kovac opened his director’s message in the fall 2020 College Scholars newsletter with these two lines: “When I was appointed director of College Scholars in the fall of 2011, my predecessor, Professor Christopher Craig, told me it was the best job at the University of Tennessee. After nine years as director, I think that was an understatement.”

Despite the struggles and stresses of life during Covid-time, I start my second year as director sharing this sentiment of Professors Craig and Kovac. I feel very lucky indeed to be able to work with this incredible group of students. The achievements of many of these students over this past difficult year are the main focus of this newsletter. The College Scholars themselves are what make this program great.

One of the main ways I get to interact with College Scholars is our weekly Honors seminar, held on Wednesdays. Last fall, we held these seminars via Zoom. In spring of this year, we held some seminars face to face and some on Zoom. This fall, we are holding all our seminars face to face. With most every College Scholar enrolled in the seminar this semester, it has been a good way to catch up and reconnect with one another. (We zealously wear masks and the room in which the seminar is held is quite large, allowing decent social distancing.)

One of my main goals as director is to increase diversity and inclusion in the College Scholars program. We continue to make strides toward the former goal. We are trying to reach the latter goal in a number of ways, one of which is through peer mentoring networks that were established in fall of 2020. This was most assuredly not the optimal time frame in which to start these networks, given the pandemic and the virtual nature of our meetings, but some groups were able to meet over the course of the academic year. This fall we have set aside some time in the weekly College Scholars seminar for these peer mentoring network groups to get together and talk. Each group comprises five to seven students with a diverse array of interests, programs of study, and year at UT (sophomores to seniors).

Another of my main goals as director is to grow the program. This past spring, we had six College Scholars graduate. Since late summer of 2020, though, we gained eight new College Scholars. We have planned a number of approaches to increasing applications to College Scholars. Soriya Cooper and Emily Morgan (two of those eight new College Scholars) and I recently met via Zoom with the advisors of the different departments and units in the College of Arts and Sciences to talk (brag?) about the College Scholars program. We are forming an outreach committee whose task will be to try to recruit new applicants. We plan to table on the pedestrian walkway of UT a few times each semester to talk with students about the program. We are also forming a swag committee to update College Scholars Program merchandise to help spread the word about us around campus.

Over the past year we had a couple of our alumni advisory board members rotate off the board, and we thank them for their work to help strengthen the program. We have added three new members to the Board – Desta Bume, Kevin Burdette, and Amelia Parker – and brief introductions to them can be found in this newsletter. In addition to the annual board meeting held each spring (held virtually this year), we have started quarterly meetings via Zoom, to generate ideas and help make sure we are all keeping on task to build and strengthen this amazing program. One idea that came out of these meetings was to try to increase current and alumni College Scholars networking on LinkedIn. Current College Scholars are interested in building relationships with alumni, and LinkedIn seems like an ideal platform for this.

In other news, Professor Jeffrey Kovac and his wife Susan started an endowment for our program in 2019. Jeff is professor emeritus in the Department of Chemistry and Susan was an instructor in the law school and also a child advocacy attorney with the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. Their endowment will ultimately provide funding to support a visiting scholar each year, and we look forward to that first visitor! Alumni and friends may give to the endowment securely online at giving.utk.edu/Kovac, and can support other College Scholars funds at scholars.utk.edu/giving.

Two College Scholars who graduated in 2020 were particularly helpful to me as I transitioned that summer into becoming the new director. I know that they also have been helpful to a number of current College Scholars. They are Maya Bian and Courtney Wombles, and we catch up with them briefly in this newsletter.

Although the delta variant continues to make life challenging for us all, we look forward to this academic year and to 2022. I would love to hear from you – please keep in touch via email at scholars@utk.edu or phone at 865-974-3975.