Ten undergraduate students awarded Holland Future Scientist Awards

Ten undergraduate students from five Nebraska colleges and universities recently received the 2019 Richard Holland Future Scientist Award from the Nebraska Coalition for Lifesaving Cures.
The students received cash awards totaling $5,000 at the annual INBRE (Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence Program) conference on Aug. 6 in Nebraska City.
 
The awards are named in honor of the late Richard Holland, an Omaha philanthropist and longtime supporter of research. This is the 12th year the Holland Future Scientist Awards have been given.
 
The students, listed below, were judged for their oral and poster presentations of the research work they conducted this summer as part of the INBRE program.
 
Also at the conference, 2017 INBRE Scholar Sean Watson received the James Turpen INBRE Scholar Excellence Award in recognition of his meritorious work while he was an undergraduate student at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The award is named for former Nebraska INBRE program director James Turpen, Ph.D., who founded the program in 2001.
 
Today the INBRE program is overseen by Paul Sorgen, Ph.D., a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Dr. Sorgen is the principal investigator of the $16.2 million grant funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health.
 
Established in 2001, the INBRE Scholars program was created to expose students to serious biomedical research and build a statewide biomedical research infrastructure between undergraduate and graduate institutions.
 
The students, referred to as INBRE scholars, enter the program after completing their sophomore year of college upon recommendation of their college professors. It is a two-year comprehensive training program to prepare the students for graduate school.
 
The award winners are listed below:
 
ORAL PRESENTATIONS
1st place – Rebekah Rapoza, Creighton University
2nd place – Taylor Burke, Creighton University
3rd place – Joshua Lindenberger, University of Nebraska at Kearney
Honorable mention – Elias Smith, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Honorable mention – Diego Gomez, Creighton University
 
POSTER PRESENTATIONS
1st place – Mika Caplan, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
2nd place – Eilidh Chowanec (not pictured), Creighton University
3rd place – Molly Myers, Creighton University
Honorable mention – Wacey Gallegos, Chadron State College
Honorable mention – Philamon Hemstreet, University of Nebraska-Lincoln