National Science Foundation Honors Southwestern University Senior with Research Fellowship

Southwestern University senior Frances Chu has been awarded a prestigious three-year graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Chu, a biology and chemistry double major from Austin, will attend Harvard University next fall. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in the University's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology.

NSF graduate fellowships offer recognition and three years of support for advanced study to approximately 900 outstanding graduate students in the mathematical, physical, biological, engineering, and behavioral and social sciences, including the history of science and the philosophy of science, and to research-based Ph.D. degrees in science education. Awards will carry a stipend for each fellow of $21,500 for a 12-month tenure and an annual cost-of-education allowance of $10,500, paid to the fellow's institution in lieu of tuition and fees.

Chu is only the second Southwestern student to receive an NSF graduate fellowship. After earning her Ph.D., she hopes to work in genetic counseling. At Southwestern, she has performed research on gene regulation by studying the developmental genetics of fruit flies with Assistant Professor of Biology Deborah Eastman.

Eastman describes Chu as "very bright, talented and enthusiastic. She has an understanding of science and a perspective on learning that is rarely seen in students at her level. In all my interactions with her, I have been impressed by her genuine interest in understanding, at the deepest level, the questions she is exploring, whether it be in the classroom or in the laboratory."

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