Lois Bigger Gehring Graduate Student Scholarship  |  IDT & Smith-Gehring Graduate Fellowships 
Marion Dave Francis Student Innovator Award  |  Clarence P. Berg Award | Subramanian Thesis Award

Lois Bigger Gehring Graduate Student Scholarship

The Lois Bigger Gehring Graduate Student Scholarship is made to the most meritorious second year Biochemistry and Molecular Biology graduate students based on academic and research achievements. The prize is named in honor of Lois Bigger Gehring, an extremely talented biochemist and graduate of the University of Iowa. Ms. Gehring is a native of Mt. Vernon, Iowa.  She attended Cornell College and majored in biology and chemistry. She earned an M.S. in bacteriology from the University of Iowa in 1949 and a PhD in biochemistry from Cambridge University in 1952. Her scientific achievements include a Fulbright Scholarship a Public Health Service Pre-Doctoral Fellowshp, a Carlisle Fellowship, and an Ernst Post-Doctoral Fellowship.

IDT & Smith-Gehring Graduate Fellowships

The IDT and Smith-Gehring Graduate Fellowships are awarded to three of the most meritorious second year Biochemistry graduate students based on academic and research achievements. Fellows will receive $5000 research accounts to support travel during the course of their PhD.

The IDT Graduate Fellowships were established through a gift made by Dr. Joseph Walder, Adjuct Professor of Biochemisty. Dr. Walder started his independent research career as a faculty member in the Department in 1978 and launched Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) in 1987.

The Smith-Gehring Graduate Fellowship was established through a gift made in memory of Dr. Elizabeth K. Smith, a 1943 PhD in Biochemistry, and from the gift of Dr. Lois Bigger Gehring, a great friend of the Department.

IDT Fellows

Smith-Gehring Fellows

Marion Dave Francis Student Innovator Award

Established to honor Dr. Marion Dave Francis, this $500 cash award recognizes a PhD student whose research has demonstrated their singular personal initiative, creativity, and resulting discontinuous discovery, as exemplified by Dr. Francis. The recipient of the award will be selected annually by the leadership team of the Department of Biochemistry. The selection will come from Faculty nominations of graduate students who have completed their PhD work by the nomination deadline. Non-awarded nominations will remain active for three years past graduation date.

Clarence P. Berg Award

Former students of Professor Berg created this award in his honor. This is a $200 cash award to be given every other year to a graduate student in Biochemistry who displays qualities of scholarship, integrity, cooperativeness, consideration and a willingness to help others. The recipient of the award will be selected by the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry at the end of May in even years. The selection will come from graduate students who have completed their PhD work during the appropriate two-year interval. The faculty agrees that the primary emphasis shall properly be on scholarship, but that there will be a strong secondary emphasis on personal qualifications and career potential. 

Clarence P. Berg, an internationally known amino acid biochemist who was a member of the department for 36 years (1932-1968). Dr. Berg is well known as the author of the 1980 book, “The University of Iowa and Biochemistry from their Beginnings.”

Subramanian Thesis Award

This is a $500 award that will be given annually to a doctoral graduate student for outstanding thesis work. Consideration will be given to distribute the award among distinct areas of Biochemistry (e.g. nucleic acids and molecular genetics, proteins and structural biology, metabolism and regulation, disease and parasites, plant molecular biology, etc.). The student will be chosen by faculty vote. In the event of a tie, the two “co-recipients” will each be given $400. There is a maximum of two “co-recepients.”

Dr. Alap Subramanian obtained his PhD from the Department of Biochemistry in 1964 working under the late Professor George Kalnitsky. He parlayed this experience with training from Irving Klotz at Northwestern and both Bernard Davis and Herman Kalckar at Harvard Medical School, into a highly successful career at the Max-Planck-Institute.