Kathleen Mettel Receives Two Awards

AAAS Award

Kathleen Mettel with award-winning poster

Mentor Pritesh Pandya looks on as Kathleen receives
the Frances L. Johnson Student Award from Speech and
HearingScience department head Adrienne Perlman.

Kathleen Mettel, undergraduate student in Department of Speech and Hearing Science, was recognized at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) in February 2009. Kathleen’s student poster competition submission, entitled "Plasticity in the Auditory Thalamus Following Exposure to Complex Acoustic Sequences," was a co-winner in the Molecular and Cellular category. Her research was conducted as a research option in the James Scholar program. She will receive a cash prize, a framed award certificate, a one-year subscription to Science, and a mention in the spring issue of Science. The AAAS is the world’s largest federation of scientist and engineers.

Read Kathleen’s poster abstract.

Kathleen also presented her award-winning poster at the Undergraduate Research Symposium on Tuesday, April 7, 2009, in the Illini Union.

Assistant professor Pritesh Pandya, Kathleen’s mentor during her James Scholar research project noted, "It is always nice to see one of our talented and forward-thinking undergraduate students in a position where they demonstrate leadership, achieve success, and excel in the research domain."

Frances L. Johnson Student Award

Kathleen also received the Frances L. Johnson Student Award at the Speech and Hearing Science Awards Ceremony on Friday, April 17, 2009. Established by retired professor Frances L. Johnson in 2006, this award provides recognition and financial support to Speech and Hearing Science students pursuing clinical careers. Professor Johnson served on the University of Illinois faculty for more than 30 years. She was instrumental in raising the status of speech-therapy programs in public schools.