Student Spotlight

Nelida Rodriguez-Osorio recently worked with a team of scientists from around the globe to complete the annotation of cattle genome and co-authored the research article "The Genome Sequence of Taurine Cattle: A Window to Ruminant Biology and Evolution," published in the April 24, 2009 issue of the prestigious scientific journal, SCIENCE. Rodriguez-Osorio received her Ph.D. in Life Sciences with a concentration in Animal Physiology from MSU in the May 2008 and is now an Associate Professor at the University of Antioquia in Colombia.

Broadcast meteorology faculty and students recently won first place in the WxChallenge, a competition that is considered by many to be the national championship of weather forecasting. This year, more than 1,600 participants from some 70 universities and research organizations in the U.S. and Canada were involved. First through sixth place all were awarded to MSU graduate students, and all of the MSU graduate student participants placed in the top seven percent in the nation.

Graduate students on the WxChallenge team from left to right:

Back: Ken Meehan, Garg Goggins, Jared Allen (3rd), Jacob Irvin (1st), Jason Dunning
Front: Lindsey Morschauser, Marla Branson, Jennifer Ast (2nd), Christina Zimmerman

Robika Modak, a doctoral student in College/Postsecondary Student Counseling and Personnel Services, was recently accepted to present "Ending Relational Aggression (RA) Among Middle School Girls" in a half-day workshop at the American School Counselor Association national meeting on June 28, 2009 in Dallas, Texas. Presented with Dr. Kimberly Hall, Assistant Professor of Counseling and Educational Psychology, Modak's workshop will describe a successful innovation group counseling model designed to benefit middle school girls who exhibit signs of RA. As a counselor at Central School in West Point, Miss., Modak was recently awarded a $200 grant from Parents in Public Schools (PIPS) which she used to implement a program to address bully prevention, anger manager and other related topics. Modak says the goal of the program is to decrease bully-related problems by 10 percent within this year.

Joseph R. "Joey" Young, a master's student in Agricultural Life Sciences concentrating in Entomology and Plant Pathology, was awarded a $5,000 James R. Watson Fellowship from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA). Young is one of three master's and doctoral-level students selected for the national honor and was identified as a promising future teacher and researcher in golf course management. In addition to the $5,000 Fellowship, Young and other 2009 honorees received an all-expense-paid trip to New Orleans in early February to attend the GCSAA Education Conference and Golf Industry Show. Young was also featured on the MSU home page under Mississippi State Headlines http://www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=4462 in an article with additional information on the Fellowship and the GCSAA.

Kaustav Misra, doctoral student in Graduate Applied Economics, presented "The Impact of Part-time Jobs Availability on College and University Retention Rates: A State Level Analysis," at the International Conference on Economic and Management Perspectives in Famagusta, North Cyprus in October 2008. Of over 130 presentations, Misra's work received the "Best Presentation Award in Economics".

John F. Edwards received the Herbert M. Handley Outstanding Dissertation Award at the 2008 Mid-South Educational Research Association (MSERA) annual meeting in November. Edwards received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology in May 2008 and is now an Assistant Research Professor and Coordinator of Laboratories for the MSU Social Science Research Center.