Rebecca A. Eikey
FDI Scholar in the Department of Chemistry
I was born in 1975 in Pittsburgh, Pa., the third of four sisters. I graduated cum laude from Chatham College in Pittsburgh with a degree in Chemistry and a minor in Mathematics. During the summer of my junior year I was awarded a NSF REU scholarship to study van der Waals complexes at USC, where I also met my fiancé. We are scheduled to be wed on August 11, 2001.
I have been awarded the George Gregory Research Fellowship Award from UCLA, the American Institute of Chemists Foundation Award from Chatham College, and was a Named Scholar at Chatham College. I am currently finishing my Ph.D. in Chemistry at UCLA under the direction of Mahdi Abu-Omar, synthesizing novel rhenium complexes and studying nitrogen transfer reactions. I expect to graduate from UCLA in Spring 2002, and after concluding postdoctoral work, I plan to teach chemistry at the college level.
I am currently a facilitator at UCLA for MS2, in collaboration with the CARE program, whose objective is to encourage students from minority groups to stay in the sciencess by giving them specialized instruction before and during their first year of classes. Since I was assisted in my undergraduate career by Act 101 at Chatham College (a summer bridge program for students in financial need), one of my real interests and commitments is to teach underprivileged students and those who have been underrepresented in the sciences.
Jonathan Gayles
FDI Scholar in the Department of Anthropology
Atlanta is my hometown. I earned my B.A. in psychology at Morehouse College, and I am currently a doctoral candidate in the Applied Anthropology Department at the University of South Florida in Tampa. I expect to complete my degree in May 2002.
My area of research is educational anthropology. I am currently examining the manner in which high-achieving African American males assign and maintain achievement in different socioeconomic environments. I also have a sincere interest in media anthropology.
I want to continue my research upon my graduation and either serve my community as a professor or return to nonprofit work. If I move into academia, one of my central goals will be to empower students to see themselves as thinkers, as scholars, as critics, and as actors in their worlds. Although they may not reach their full potential in my class, as a result of taking my class I want them to come to see their potential as something that absolutely must be fully pursued.
I am a music collector and hold a brown belt in judo.
