McNair Fellows Neupane ’09, Doan ’10 Receive Honors

McNair Fellows Asia Neupane ’09 and Aivi Doan ’10 have both received recognition for their research initiatives.

Neupane, who also is a Mellon Fellow, was awarded first prize for her poster presentation “Mercury Pollution in Tobago, West Indies” at the 8th Annual New England Science Symposium, which was held April 3 at Harvard Medical School. Neupane collected samples for her research this summer in Tobago, West Indies, and has been analyzing them in the Earth and Environmental Sciences lab of Johan Varekamp, the Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science. She has been a research assistant with Professor Varekamp since her frosh year.

McNair Fellow Avi Doan ’10, who, under the supervision of Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Manju Hingorani, has been doing research on DNA repair proteins MutS and MutL, has been selected to spend the summer as an Howard Hughes Medical Institute EXROP Fellow. Doan will conduct her research under the fellowship with Professor Randy W. Scheckman at the University of California, Berkeley, working on how proteins find their way to the correct locations within cells.

EXROP (Exceptional Research Opportunities Program) provides talented undergraduates from disadvantaged backgrounds with summer research experiences in the labs of Howard Hughest Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators and HHMI professors. The students are selected by HHMI professors and invited directors of HHMI-funded undergraduate programs at colleges and universities. EXROP students also attend meetings at HHMI headquarters where they present their research in a poster session, network with their peers and HHMI scientists, and hear from scientific researchers from various backgrounds and stages in their careers.