IMPACT

Kyle Ireton (Biochemistry & Biophysics, ‘12) has unconventional advice for students following in his footsteps: Don't follow him.

The College of Science community recently gathered to celebrate this year’s Alumni Award recipients. These alumni distinguished themselves through their groundbreaking research, strong leadership and efforts to enhance equity, access and inclusion.

The remnants of ancient bacteria live inside each of us as mitochondria, structures in cells that are critical for life. Breakthrough work from Simon Johnson, B.S. biochemistry and biophysics ‘09, and his lab has shed new light on how dysfunction of mitochondria causes human disease. For his great strides towards a cure for mitochondrial diseases within a decade since his last degree, Johnson has received the 2023 Young Alumni Award in the College of Science.

On October 24, 2022, the College of Science community gathered to celebrate this year’s Alumni Award recipients. These awards publicly recognize our alumni, friends, and colleagues for their distinguished personal and career achievements, service, and contributions to society that reflect positively on the College of Science and on Oregon State University.

One question changed the course of Tari Tan’s (Biochemistry & Biophysics, ‘08) professional career.

Andres Cardenas (B.S. 10), a trailblazer in devising epidemiological and molecular approaches to understand how environmental exposures affect disease, has received the 2020 Young Alumni Award from the College of Science.

Meet Katherine Ganio, 2009 biochemistry & biophysics alumna and research fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Meet Tari Tan, biochemistry and biophysics alumna and currently the Director of Educational Programming for Neurobiology and the Ph.D. program in Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.

Andres Cardenas (10', '15) has received funding to spend the next five years studying the impacts of prenatal and early childhood environmental stressors on children’s health and development.

Since graduating from OSU with a degree in biochemistry & biophysics, Bango has been in the Peace Corps, worked in a malaria research laboratory in Botswana and is now working on the front lines of COVID-19 testing and treatment in Los Angeles County, California.

Doctoral student Patrick Morar is the 2019-20 Christopher and Catherine Mathews Graduate Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics.

When alumna Karen Nickel (Chemistry, ’61) returned to campus after a long and illustrious career in clinical chemistry, the trip “brought back lots of good memories."