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Kellogg School of Science and Technology
The
42 graduate students who arrived at the Kellogg School of Science and Technology at Scripps Research
in August 2004 entered a program filled with more exciting opportunities for study and research
than ever before. The Skaggs Oxford Scholarships Program, a joint 5-year program of study in biology
or chemistry at Scripps Research and biochemistry at Britain’s Oxford University, was launched
in 2004. The program, made possible by the generosity of supermarket and drugstore magnate L.S.
Skaggs and his wife, Aline, enables highly qualified students to gain broad and deep interdisciplinary
research experience at the 2 institutions. The first Skaggs Oxford scholars, Erin Scherer from
Scripps Research and Joanna Rawlings from Oxford, are now immersed in their transatlantic studies.
At the Kellogg School’s 12th commencement,
May 21, 2004, a total of 31 students—a record number for Scripps Research—were awarded
doctoral degrees. Distinguished scientist Raymond A. Dwek of Oxford University, who received
an honorary degree during the ceremony, delivered the keynote address. In it, he offered advice
to the graduating students and commented on the new Skaggs Oxford Program.
“Strangely enough, although [Oxford’s]
first overseas student, Emo of Friesland, arrived at Oxford University in 1190, Oxford has never
had a joint degree course with any other university or institution—that is, until April 2004,”
Dwek said. “That’s when the University Council voted to create the first-ever joint
Ph.D. with The Scripps Research Institute. Given the Byzantine number of bylaws, regulations,
and statutes that the university has acquired over the last nine centuries, this innovation was
a Herculean labor—it even brought the Queen and Privy Council into play! So The Scripps Research
Institute and its standards of excellence are being discussed at the highest circles of government
in the UK.”
In another multi-institutional collaboration,
plans have been made for Scripps Research graduate students to be joined in the laboratory by M.D.-Ph.D.
candidates enrolled in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of California,
San Diego, Medical School. In this program, students receive education in both clinical medicine
and biomedical research. Scripps Research doctoral candidates and faculty will be enriched by
the perspective of these academic physicians in training. The first applications for this program
will be reviewed next year.
Scripps Research students now have several
additional courses available to them on campus, including Experimental Methods in Biology and
Chemistry, the first course to be required of all entering students no matter what their field of
study, and the new elective courses Molecular Medicine and Elementary Biostatistics.
Moreover, students initiated the addition
of the first distance-learning course to the Kellogg School curriculum. In the spring, using video
conferencing technology, the students participated in Essentials of Glycobiology at the University
of California, San Diego. They were joined by distance-learning students on the University of
California Berkeley and Davis campuses.
The success of this class bodes well for
expanding educational opportunities for existing and future Kellogg School graduate students,
at both the La Jolla and the Palm Beach County campuses of Scripps Research. The Scripps Florida
facility is slated to open a graduate education program component within the next 5 years. Video
conferencing has the potential to offer Scripps Florida students access to the tremendous intellectual
resources in La Jolla, and vice versa.
As in previous years, in 2004 many Kellogg
School students were recognized for their exceptional promise. Five students, Michael Frederick,
Kiyomi Komori, Jeremy Richter, William Ridgeway, and Jason Young, won merit-based fellowships
from the National Science Foundation. Trevor Dale won a fellowship from the Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council of Canada. Jason Chen received a National Defense Science and Engineering
Graduate Fellowship. Parinaz (Paris) Aliahmad received a Canadian fellowship from the province
of Quebec, Le Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec. And Daniel O’Malley won
2 fellowships, the Hertz Fellowship and the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate
Fellowship.
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