Department of Biology |  |
Eberhart AwardsThe Bruce McClain Eberhart AwardThis award was established by the family of Dr. Bruce M. Eberhart to honor exceptional students in the Biology Department who are academically excellent, actively involved in research, and demonstrate significant extracurricular contributions or service to the department, the university, the community as a whole, and even to fellow species they share the planet with. The award was established in 1997 to honor the memory and many contributions of Dr. Eberhart, a cancer victim, to the Biology Department and the community by honoring the students who are contributing to the department and the community in ways that were typical of him. The award is presented to graduating senior biology students and consists of a cash honorarium and a book, which is chosen to repersent contributions to science and humanity by outstanding individuals or biological scientists. This serves, then, as an inspiration to young biological scientists just starting in their careers. The Eberhart Award fund provides not only the cash honoraria but also scholarship support for undergraduate research. The book presented to the Eberhart Award winners in 2012 was The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. From the book's dustjacket we learn that, "Doctors took her cells without asking. Those cells never died. They launched a medical revolution and a multimillion-dollar industry. More than twenty years later her children found out." The issues about medical and scientific ethics raised by this book are definitely what Dr. Eberhart would have been concerned about and thus this was the volume chosen for the award winners.
Past Eberhart Award Winners 2012 - Zoe Rebecca Goldstone, Emily Cecilia Mason & Ashley Shane Williams 2011 - Andrew James Blank, Chandra Ellen Metheny & Danielle Elizabeth Mizerak |
