Each year, the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis awards a prize to a graduating senior in memory of Marion Smith Spector, a 1938 graduate who studied zoology under the late Viktor Hamburger.
This year, Vita Jaspan has won the prize.
The Spector Prize, first awarded in 1974, recognizes academic excellence and outstanding undergraduate achievement in research. Students are nominated by their research mentors for outstanding research that has made substantial contributions to a field.
Jaspan received mentorship from, and worked in the lab of, Douglas Chalker, associate professor of biology. She expects to graduate in May with a degree in biology and plans to continue her education at New York University School of Medicine. Her thesis was titled “A Novel Lia3-like Protein Ltl1 Controls Boundaries of IES Excision in Tetrahymena thermophila.”
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