Helen Fox- The Elizabeth B. Reed Award

Helen received her BA with distinction in Biology from Swarthmore College in 1994 After spending a year as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Queensland, she is now pursuing a PhD in Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley. Her primary area of interest is in coral reefs, specifically their management and regeneration. Her dissertation will focus upon the disturbance caused by dynamite fishing in Indonesia. In her words, "Repeated blasting transforms the reef into a shifting, unstable rubble field that rarely returns to a healthy reef community."

Henry Goldschmidt

Henry received his BA degree in Anthropology from Wesleyan University in 1991. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz, where he has been awarded a Regents fellowship and an outstanding teaching assistant award. Henry's dissertation will study relations between the African-American and Jewish communities in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Henry states that "More than seven years after the riots, the racial and religious identities that divide Crown Heights are still largely misunderstood."

Eric Klinenberg

Eric received his AB degree from Brown University in 1993 with a double major in Philosophy and History. He is currently engaged in doctoral studies in Anthropology at UC Berkeley. Eric is studying the 1995 Chicago heat wave in which more than seven hundred people died and what it says about the structure of society. Specifically, "The research delves deeply into the historical and current structures of Chicago's social and political life and shows that the social autopsy of the heat wave serves as a revelator of urban conditions that are present but more difficult to see in normal times." 

Lucille Kwak

Lucille received her AB degree in Psychology from UCLA in 1990. She is currently pursuing a MFA in Cinema at San Francisco State University. Her Master's thesis will study the experiences of Asian-American actors in San Francisco in the forties and fifties. She has won several awards for her film, "Return to Grace", which analyzes the "reconciliation of Jae, a Korean-American painter with his older, schizophrenic sister, Grace." 

William Oliver 

William earned his BS degree in Electrical Engineering as well as a BA in Japanese from the University of Rochester in 1995. If this wasn't enough to occupy his undergraduate years, he worked his way through college playing with a band and volunteering as an Emergency Medical Technician. After receiving his MS in Electrical Engineering at MIT, he enrolled in the PhD program in Electrical Engineering at Stanford. His dissertation will focus on the area of quantum electron optics which he states "is a new field merging quantum optics and mesoscopic condensed matter physics." 

Michael Penn, Jr. 

Michael received his BS in Biology from Morehouse College in 1994. He is currently enrolled in the Medical Scientist Training Program at UCSF with a specialty in Immunology. In his PhD program, he is currently studying the mechanisms by which the HIV virus deteriorates the human immune system. Michael says, "My ultimate goal is two-fold: to increase the quality of life in our society through community involvement and scientific discovery." 

David Sherman 

David earned his BA in Psychology from Cornell in 1995. He received a MA in Psychology at Stanford in 1996 where he is currently enrolled in the PhD program in that field. David is the recipient of a National Science Foundation fellowship. His dissertation will focus upon the study of poverty within social psychology, with a particular emphasis on welfare women. He notes that, "In contrast to the stereotype of welfare women as extremely dependent, our research has found that they are extremely independent." 

Vikaas Sohal

Vikaas received his AB degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard in 1997. He is currently enrolled in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Stanford. Vikaas seeks to combine his understanding of mathematics with his science training in order to gain insight into how the mind functions. As he puts it, "My love of mathematics has proved indispensable, because to understand 'how the mind works', it's not enough to characterize the physical substrate of the brain. As with a computer, one could understand all the circuitry but still not understand how Windows 95 works." 

Scott Tang

Scott earned his BA in History and Political Science summa cum laude from the University of Arizona in 1992. He is currently enrolled in the PhD program in History at UC Berkeley. Scott has received several awards as a Graduate Student Instructor and a Mellon grant. His dissertation will focus on the changing relationships among white and non-white San Franciscans during World War II and in the period immediately following it. Scott notes that "The ultimate goal is an integrated multicultural history that allows one to access sites of interracial interaction." 

Hilary Teplitz

Hilary was granted her BA degree in Russian Literature and Russian Area Studies from Wellesley in 1994. She is currently working toward her PhD in Slavic Literature at Stanford. In her teaching role at Stanford she was awarded a Centennial Teaching Assistant certificate. Hilary's dissertation will focus upon Russian views of America over the past thirty years. As she says, "America does not simply come to represent a series of qualities or elements that may be delineated neatly but rather, in myth, it evokes emotion and inspires action." 

Miriam Ticktin

Miriam received her AB in Anthropology from Princeton in 1993, where she was awarded the Pyne Prize, the University's highest award for undergraduates. She then studied at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and is currently enrolled in the PhD program at Stanford in Cultural Anthropology. Her dissertation will study feminist activism in France. More specifically, it "will examine two types of feminist activism, one initiated by those of immigrant origin and the other by white activists."

Tony Wong

Tony received his AB degree cum laude from Harvard in 1994 with a major in Physics and Astronomy. He is currently in the PhD program in Astronomy at UC Berkeley. While in the program, Tony has sought out teaching opportunities and currently has full responsibility for a course in Astrobiology. His dissertation will analyze the relationship between interstellar gas and star formation. In his words, "Studying the present day gas content in galaxies not only tells us about the future possibilities for star formation but provides information on formation in the past as well."