September 1, 2000

Students continue their academic prowess

Brent Hernandez and Kieu Trang received the Gates Millennium Scholarship that is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The money provides assistance to high-achieving minority students who are in severe financial need and otherwise would be excluded from higher education. Hernandez is a classical studies junior and Trang is a computer/science/history major. The Gates Millennium Scholarship is administered by the United Negro College Fund with the support and participation of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the American Indian College Fund, and the Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee.

Denise Belleville won the Jack H. Sanders Memorial Scholarship from Public Relations Association of Louisiana's Baton Rouge chapter. The scholarship is presented each year to a Louisiana student who has demonstrated proficiency, excellence, and dedication to pursuing public relations knowledge.

Biology students present papers

Four biology students attended and presented papers at the 61^st meeting of the Association of Southern Biologists (ASB) in April. The annual meeting of regional biologists studying ecology and biodiversity was held in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Each of the students presented papers based on their undergraduate honors theses in biology.

Margaret Couvillon received an honorable mention for her paper, "Histone phosphorylation during the cell cycle of yeast, Schizosaccharyomycetes pombe." Joanna DeSalvo presented a paper on the "Distribution and habitat use of damselfly larve in the estuarine portion of the St. Johns River, Florida." Cerinda Morales' paper was titled "Foraging efficiency largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) in introduced and nature submerged aquatic vegetation." Gianna Rossi presented "Effects of estrogen on working memory performance assessed in the water maze in the middle-aged female rat." Next year's annual meeting of ASB will be jointly hosted by Loyola and Tulane. Professors Donald Hauber, Craig Hood, Frank Jordan, and David White will serve as hosts with colleagues from Tulane's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.