Lisa Bond and Stephanie Jones, seniors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have received 2008-2009 Churchill Scholarships for graduate work at Cambridge University in England, valued at $46,000 to $52,000 each.
Bond, the daughter of Richard and Angela Bond of Bowie, Md., is biology major with a chemistry minor at Carolina. She will use the scholarship to earn a master’s degree in biochemistry at Cambridge. Jones, the daughter of Stephen and Cindy Jones of Cary, N.C., is a chemistry major with a minor in entrepreneurship. She will seek a master’s degree in chemistry in England. Both aim to become university research professors.
Bond and Jones were among 13 Churchill Scholars chosen nationwide by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States. Ninety-eight American colleges and universities had the option to nominate two candidates. Carolina is the only North Carolina institution with Churchill Scholars this year.
Carolina is the only university to have two Churchill Scholars named in the same year twice over the last decade – previously, in 2000-2001. That year, Cornell University also had two. Amherst College had two last year; Princeton University has two this year.
UNC and Princeton are tied at eight for the most Churchill Scholars from any campus from 1997 through this year. The California Institute for Technology has had seven. Cornell, Harvard and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign each have five. The universities of Chicago and Rochester and Duke, Michigan State and Yale universities have four each over the same period.
Since 1993, 12 UNC students have received the Churchill. The last UNC recipient was Nick Love in 2005.
“Lisa and Stephanie are incredibly accomplished young scholars, and I couldn’t be happier for them,” said Peter Mucha, Ph.D., an associate professor of mathematics and chair of the nominating committee for Churchill candidates from UNC.
“The Churchill Scholarship selection process is excessively competitive, with many more truly excellent applicants than scholarships available to award, so having both Lisa and Stephanie win is a testament to their outstanding records and, in a broader sense, the accomplishments of UNC students and the opportunities sought out by those students,” he said.
Recipients are American undergraduates planning to pursue graduate studies in science, mathematics and engineering. They are chosen for outstanding academic and extracurricular accomplishments. Candidates also are evaluated on academic work, Graduate Record Examination scores, capacity for original and creative work, character, adaptability, demonstrated concern for critical problems of society and good health.
The scholarship provides $25,000 for tuition and fees, $20,000 to $24,000 for living expenses for a nine- or 12-month course of study, respectively, and up to $1,000 for one round-trip airfare from this country to Great Britain, plus Visa fees. Each scholar also is eligible for a research grant of up to $2,000.
Bond graduated from the Academy of the New Church Girls’ School in Bryn Athyn, Pa., in 2004 as class valedictorian. At UNC, she became a research assistant in the genetics lab of biology professor Kerry Bloom, Ph.D.. Bond presented results of her work there at North Carolina Undergraduate Research Symposia in 2005 and 2006. She also was an author on a scientific paper published in January in the journal “Current Biology.” Now, she is finishing research for her senior honors thesis in the lab.
Last summer, Bond interned in the lab of Dr. James Sellers at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes for Health. Bond studied the role that myosin proteins play in cellular processes, including transportation of messenger RNA. Mutation of one of these proteins has been implicated in disorders including heart disease; too much of the protein may play a role in prostate cancer, she said.
Bond has made the dean’s list every semester at Carolina, where she holds a university merit scholarship of $9,000 a year and a National Merit Scholarship of $2,000 a year. She has won awards and funding from the American Society for Cell Biology and, at UNC, the biology department and the Office of Undergraduate Research.
Bond has worked as a biology teaching assistant for three years at UNC. A member of the UNC club cross-country team, she runs 5-kilometer races and half marathons. She volunteers at the local Ronald McDonald House and Habitat for Humanity.
Bond was influenced by the international nature of research at NIH. “This realization of the global nature of modern research, combined with a personal passion for cultural exploration, convinced me to build my research team on the principles of international collaboration,” she said. “The pursuit of a master’s degree at Cambridge is the perfect opportunity to begin my internationally-based research career.”
Jones, who has conducted research at UNC since she was a high school junior, graduated from the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics in 2004.
“The University of Cambridge will be the perfect place to continue my exploration of how chemical factors contribute to stem cell biology, and how materials can be rationally designed to induce differentiation and tissue repair …” she said. “As a young citizen and scientist, I am enthralled by the vast potential of stem cells to improve human health and by the challenges we face to turn this potential into reality.”
Jones credited UNC professors Holden Thorp, Ph.D., and Muhammad Yousaf, Ph.D., of chemistry, for accepting her into their labs and mentoring her in her research there. (Thorp is now also dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.)
A mentor to UNC and high school students, Jones said, “I believe many students are discouraged from science because of lack of personal interaction with professors who do the most interesting research. I want to change this.”
Last year Jones received a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, another of the most distinguished study awards given annually to outstanding U.S. students. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa by the fall of her junior year. She has spoken twice on the importance of undergraduate research to the Board of Governors, which oversees the 16-campus University of North Carolina.
Jones has twice worked as a relief volunteer in areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. She won second place in a collegiate mountain biking competition and took on other physical challenges while studying environmental science in Siberia for two months.
“I slept in a tent for eight weeks, fought off enormous mosquitoes in peat bogs and chased Siberian soil scientists up pathless mountains,” she said. “The physical battle against the elements and the mental struggle to communicate made Siberia the most challenging experience of my life. I loved it!”
Web site: http://www.winstonchurchillfoundation.org/
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Note: Bond can be reached at lmbond@email.unc.edu; Jones, at srjones@email.unc.edu.
Office of Distinguished Scholarships contact: George Lensing, (919) 843-7764, (919) 962-4053, lensing@email.unc.edu
News Services contact: LJ Toler, (919) 962-8589