The Fred Seward Award is supported by the George E. Archer Foundation. The foundation, established in 1984, supports a variety of initiatives—including school gardens, workshops for educators, gardening camps, and collaborations with other youth-serving organizations. This award, established in 2014, honors the memory of Indiana University alumnus, track star, and local businessman Fred Seward.
Wendy Deras is a first-generation, second-year Latina student studying biology on a pre-M.D./Ph.D. track. She works as an undergraduate teaching assistant for ASURE’s genetic engineering class under the mentorship of Dr. Mike Manzella.
Last year Wendy was a student in Dr. Manzella’s lab, and for her semester-long project chose to assess the prevalence of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes in Indiana.
This summer Wendy will be traveling across the country where she will be studying and researching sustainability practices among Costa Rican researchers.
Richard “Rich” Hull is a second-year Ph.D. student in Senior Scientist Eric Knox’s lab, where he studies distributional patterns of vascular plants in Indiana. Specifically, this award will support Rich’s 2022 summer fieldwork along the Wabash River corridor, which is part of a larger three-year field effort to document the modern flora of this region. Beyond research, he is an active member of the Indiana Academy of Science, a volunteer for the Indiana Plant Conservation Alliance, and a naturalist with a passion for sharing his knowledge of the natural world with others.
The College of Arts