Past Beckman Scholars

2022-2023

Sarah Hourihan

Sarah is currently a junior majoring in biological sciences and music (clarinet). Her persisting love for biology and discovery prompted her to begin researching with Dr. Nicole Creanza the summer after her freshman year as a Pre-MARC Summer Research Fellow. Her current research studies the effects of learned behaviors on evolution. Specifically, she is focusing on the dark-eyed junco, a songbird of North America that has experienced rapid phenotypic diversification into subspecies. She is investigating whether the subspecies have significant song differences and whether those song differences could be playing a role in maintaining subspecies boundaries.

In addition to research, Sarah is involved on campus with Vanderbilt University Microbiome Society, Vanderbilt Athletic Bands, Nashville Navigators, Asian American Student Association, FirstVU, and Questbridge. In her free time, she enjoys reading, making music, and exploring nature. Upon completing her undergraduate studies, Sarah plans on attending graduate school.

Antony Peng

Born in Reno, NV, and raised in Solon, OH, Antony (Tony) is a Vanderbilt undergraduate student majoring in cognitive studies/science and chemistry. He joined the Macdonald Lab the summer before his second year, investigating phase control of copper selenide nanoparticles via in situ reactions with commonly used ligands and solvents. Currently, his research focuses upon understanding the role of reaction kinetics and thermodynamics in phase control of both copper and cadmium selenide nanoparticles.

In addition to his work in the Macdonald Lab, he also works with Dr. Jessika Boles in the Children’s Healthcare, Illness, Legacy, and Loss (CHILL) Lab investigating the efficacy of bereavement services at VUMC as well as understanding conceptions of legacy for bereaved families.

2018-2019

Joseph Carter Powers

Carter received his B.A. in molecular and cellular biology with honors in 2020 and enrolled in the M.D. program at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. Carter grew up in Unicoi, Tennessee, and he began his career in research in the fall of his sophomore year when he joined the Hillyer Lab. He investigated the effects of age and temperature on the mosquito humoral immune response. Specifically, how immune gene expression changes as a function of temperature and age. Carter’s broad research interests include disease transmission, host and vector biology, and strategies of disease prevention.

Outside of research, Carter was involved in VUcept, Alternative Spring Break, and Vanderbilt Student Government where he served on the Student Health and Wellness Committee along with his position as director of human resources.

Lawrence Berg

Lawrence received his B.S. in chemistry, engineering science and political science with highest honors from Vanderbilt University in 2019. Lawrence enrolled at Stanford University and was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2021. He grew up in the small town of Flowood, Mississippi.

Lawrence was a member of the Townsend Lab, where he worked on a novel method of synthesizing tetralones, a common structural unit in opioids. He hoped developing this synthetic technique would provide a new method of opioid synthesis to allow for the design and development of less addictive opioid derivatives.

In addition to researching in the Townsend Lab, he also served as the president of Vanderbilt Quiz Bowl, the vice president of the Vanderbilt chapter of the American Chemical Society, and a team leader in Vanderbilt Student Volunteers for Science.

2017-2018

Zack Ely

Originally from East Tennessee, Zack received his B.S. in molecular and cellular biology with honors from Vanderbilt University in 2018. After graduation he entered the Ph.D. program at Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research at MIT in The Jacks Laboratory and was awarded the Margaret A. Cunningham Immune Mechanisms in Cancer Research Fellowship in 2020.

Zack first developed his passion for science in high school, while reading the works of Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, and Nick Lane. His research experience began and continues in the Rokas laboratory, where he applied computational genomics to study the galectin gene family. He is specifically interested in understanding how galectins affect human pregnancy outcome, and he seeks to answer prevailing questions regarding the transcriptional regulation and recent evolution of placentally expressed galectin genes. In addition to his role as an undergraduate researcher, Zack was a Justice of Vanderbilt Student Government’s Judicial Court, an avid reader and hiker, and a frequent occupant of the carrels in the Science and Engineering Library.

2016-2017

Nicole Jenkinson

Nicole received her B.S. in chemical engineering and B.A. in chemistry with honors from Vanderbilt in May 2018. Nicole enrolled in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MD-PhD) at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the BME Graduate Program in Dr. Glunde’s laboratory. She grew up in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

Nicole was a member of Chi Omega and the Vanderbilt Student Government Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Committee, and began doing research in the spring of her first year in the Macdonald Lab. That spring she began synthesizing nanoparticles and investigated the effect of carbonyl position on the particles’ optical properties, and continued this work through the fall. She has also worked on synthesizing an amphiphilic nanoparticle that is optimized for bioimaging.

Hope Pan

Hope graduated early (Dec. 2017) with High Honors after studying the structural biology of DNA lesions made by methylating agents. She served as President of the ACS student chapter at VU, and began the MD/PhD program at UCLA in Fall 2018, and joined the Eisenberg lab.