Each year, the Department recognizes a graduating Genetics major with the Cynthia Kenyon Outstanding Undergraduate Award. The Award goes to a student based on excellence in academics, research and leadership. Students are nominated by the Faculty and the Undergraduate Affairs Committee makes the final selection. The Award is presented at the Spring semester graduation celebration. The recipient receives a cash award and the student's name is engraved on a plaque that hangs in the Genetics office. The Faculty named the Award to honor a former UGA undergraduate, Cynthia Kenyon. In 1986 Kenyon joined the falculty at the University of California, San Francisco, where she served as a professor of biochemistry and biophysics for 27 years, was named Herbert Boyer Distinguished Professor and served as director of the Larry L. Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging. In 2014 Dr. Kenyon accepted her current position as Vice President of Aging Research at Calico. She is a pioneer in aging research: in 1993, Kenyon showed that a single mutation could double the lifespan of the roundworm, C. elegans, sparking renewed interest in the molecular biology of aging. Kenyon earned her Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed her postdoctoral work with Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a former president of the Genetics Society of America. She has received many prizes for her work, including the King Faisal Prize for Medicine and the American Association of Medicine Award for Distinguished Research in the Biomedical Sciences. Genetics majors graduating in the current academic year are encouraged to apply for the Cynthia Kenyon Outstanding Undergraduate Award. Contact the Undergraduate Coordinator for information on applying. Past winners of the Cynthia Kenyon Outstanding Undergraduate Award 2021 Tarun Ramesh 2020 Callan Russell 2019 Ashley Amukamara 2018 Lauren Dunavent 2017 Erin Hollander 2016 Patrick Griffin 2015 Amy Webster 2014 Philip Grayeski 2013 Drexel Neumann and Spencer Mitchell 2012 Daniel Piqué 2011 Christina Swoope 2010 Cullen Timmons 2009 Sara Pope 2008 Elizabeth A. Riggle 2007 Shannon Yu 2006 Rebekah Rogers 2005 Kelly Kopf 2004 Adrianne Nehrling 2003 Judson Lewis 2002 Frank Parker Hudson III 2001 Margaret Snoke 2000 Asa Cordle and Holly Gooding
