Three Graduate Students in the Eberly College awarded WVU Foundation Distinguished Doctoral Fellowships

Morgantown, WV, November 29, 2006:  Eric Duchess, Todd Stueckle and Andrea Sutyak are three of the four winners of the 2006 West Virginia University Foundation Distinguished Doctoral Fellowships.

The WVU Foundation Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship awards $5,000 to exemplary graduate students to support the completion of their degrees.

Eric Duchess, from Washington, Pennsylvania, has received the WVU Foundation Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities. He is a history graduate student in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

“Eric Duchess is one of the most polished graduate instructors I have had the pleasure to mentor during my time at WVU,” said Dr. Robert Blobaum, Chair of the Department of History. “From the beginning he has assumed a leadership role among graduate students in the Department of History, especially in the orientation of incoming graduate teaching assistants. The dissertation fellowship will accelerate Eric’s research program and, consequently, his overall professional development.”

Todd Stueckle, from Spokane, Washington, has been awarded the WVU Foundation Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship in the Natural Sciences. He is a biology graduate student in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

“Todd is one of the premier graduate students in biology,” explained Dr. Jonathan Cumming, Chair of the Department of Biology. “He has been working in Dr. Christy Foran’s lab for several years on the effects of human induced environmental changes on fiddler crabs in the Chesapeake Bay. Todd’s work integrates WVU into the wide ranging scientific efforts to understand the effects of pollution in the bay, and works toward solutions to these problems. The WVU Foundation Fellowship is a great reward for Todd’s work and will allow him to focus on the final stages of his research.”

Andrea Sutyak, from Terra Alta, W.Va., received the WVU Foundation Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship in the Physical Sciences and Technology. She is a graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Mathematics in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

“Andrea has demonstrated a commitment to teaching with a special contribution to the state as shown by her first appointment in the TIGERS program in which she worked with a rural middle school mathematics class,” said Dr. Michael Mays, Director for the Institute for Math Learning. “In addition, she has a paper submitted for publication that develops her ideas, and this semester she is working to put her observations in the form of generating functions. The fellowship will be especially valuable to her at this time, not only for the obvious financial help, but also for the encouragement it would give as she transitions to the professoriate.”

The recipient of the WVU Foundation Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship in the Social Sciences is Amanda Visek, a sport and exercise psychology graduate student in the School of Physical Education.

As F. Duke Perry, WVU Foundation president and CEO, explained, “These postgraduate students are the future generations of researchers and teachers who will help shape what West Virginia and the nation become. The fellowships also will help to fulfill the WVU Foundation’s mission to enhance the overall well-being of West Virginia University.”

For more information, please email Dr. Jonathan Cumming at jcumming@wvu.edu, Dr. Robert Blobaum at Robert.Blobaum@mail.wvu.edu, or Dr. Michael Mays at Michael.Mays@mail.wvu.edu.

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