Emily Lin SURFs to the Top as a UMCP 2010 Student Researcher of the Year

Ganesh Sriram and Emily Lin. Photo by Faye Levine, University of Maryland Communications Coordinator.

Emily Lin, a 2009 recipient of ASPB’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), was recently selected as a University of Maryland, College Park, 2010 Student Researcher of the Year. This award recognizes excellence above and beyond expectations in undergraduate research and provides a $500 stipend in recognition of these accomplishments. It is granted to only five students each year at the 26,000-student university. The student–researcher honorees were recognized in the McKeldin Library during the University of Maryland’s Undergraduate Research Day ceremony on April 27, 2010. The award and ceremony are managed by the Maryland Center for Undergraduate Research.

Emily had this to say in an e-mail to ASPB when asked about her experience: “I’m very excited about receiving the Undergraduate Researcher of the Year award at the University of Maryland. I’m very thankful for the nomination by my mentor, Dr. Ganesh Sriram, and the recognition by the selection committee. My experience with undergraduate research [here] has been the most pleasant and motivating, and I have learned so much from research that I cannot otherwise learn easily from textbooks. The ASPB SURF program allows me to work on my individual project, and I am motivated to present my research results [at Plant Biology 2010] in Montréal this summer. To me, putting what I have learned in class and through reading into experiments and receiving results is the most exciting component of my undergraduate learning experience.”

Emily was selected “based on an exceptionally strong nomination provided by [her] mentor, Professor Ganesh Sriram, as well as on other information about [her] accomplishments at the university.” Ganesh is an ASPB member working in the university’s Department of Biochemical Engineering as, among other things, a systems biology expert. He mentored Emily through the application process and research for SURF 2009. Emily and Ganesh will attend Plant Biology 2010 in Montréal this summer, where Emily will present a poster on her SURF project titled “Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry Derivatization for Metabolic Flux Analysis.” To round out her SURF experience, Ganesh will introduce Emily to the many aspects of professional development and networking available at the conference. Ganesh commented, “I am proud of Emily’s University of Maryland 2010 Student Researcher of the Year award. This is a prestigious recognition and reflects not only Emily’s research aptitude but also her ability to transcend disciplinary boundaries between engineering and plant biology. The ASPB SURF award went a long way in giving Emily a quality research experience and in enabling her to learn skills such as plant cell culture, mass spectrometry, and metabolic flux analysis, as well as in preparing her for a research career."

Katie Engen