AdvanceVT announces Ph. D. fellowship recipients

Virginia Tech’s AdvanceVT Program named Jessica Homyack and Michelle Soupir the 2006 fellowship recipients for the Ph.D. program.

Homyack, a Ph.D fellow for the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Virginia Tech, graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife and Fisheries Resources from West Virginia University. She completed her master’s degree in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Maine, where she was voted the outstanding graduate student in her department. She looks forward to using her AdvanceVT fellowship to explore issues in academia related to dual career relationships and balancing family and work.

Soupir, a Ph.D fellow for the Department of Biological Sciences and Engineering at Virginia Tech, received her bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University and her master’s degree from Virginia Tech. She is expected to receive her doctorate from Virginia Tech in the summer of 2007. Soupir is currently researching the transport of fecal bacteria from pasturelands to determine if cells are transported to surface waters in the planktonic or attached phase.

AdvanceVT Ph.D. fellowships support students in science and engineering who aspire to pursue an academic career in fields in which women are underrepresented in faculty positions. In addition to financial support, the recipients receive intensive mentoring to help them prepare for a faculty career.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become among the largest universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech’s eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 180 academic degree programs.