Photo of Nadine Barrie Smith
Established in memory of Erik Haferkamp, the Erik Haferkamp Memorial Fund supports the Erik Haferkamp Memorial Scholarship for Undergraduate Summer Research to allow a promising undergraduate neuroscientist to pursue research at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology during the summer. For summer 2012, one-$3,000 scholarship will be awarded which also will include a tuition subsidy (for up to two credit hours) and a fees subsidy. The purpose of the $3,000 scholarship is to pay for housing and/or other living expenses so that the selected student can remain on campus during the summer to conduct research in Beckman Institute laboratories. The recipient shall be a United States citizen or permanent resident of the United States.
About Erik Haferkamp
Erik was a promising undergraduate researcher who joined Justin Rhodes' laboratory at the Beckman Institute as a research assistant in spring, 2007. He proved to be an outstanding student who dedicated a significant amount of his time to the lab from 2007 until his death in 2010. During the summer of 2009, Erik worked full-time in the lab as a student hourly which proved to be critical to his research progress. That fall, he worked as a paid research assistant. Erik quickly became competent at many of the technical procedures in the lab, including maintaining the mouse colonies, carrying out mouse behavior experiments, conducting immunohistochemistry on brain sections, microscopy, and image analysis. Erik was also responsible for the maintenance of the Rhodes lab's web site and the database for managing the lab's grants and expenditures. Erik was involved with all the projects in the lab but he made especially important contributions to a project funded by a start up pharmaceutical company to test novel compounds for efficacy in excessive alcohol intake using a preclinical mouse model. He also made substantial contributions collecting data for a study examining the effects of exercise on the growth of new nerve cells in the brain, for which he earned co-authorship on a paper in Behavioral Brain Research.
Application
Interested applicants should submit a curriculum vitae (CV), including cumulative GPA, and a research proposal not to exceed three (3) pages in length, excluding references. The application must also include a letter from a Beckman Institute faculty member indicating their willingness to sponsor the student for the summer at the Beckman Institute. The proposal should clearly describe the rationale for the research, the preliminary work that was done to support the research proposal, the specific aims, methods, expected results, and limitations. A statement must be included in either the letter from the faculty member or the research proposal that indicates the specific role that the student will play in the research. The research project can be in any area of neuroscience, including animal or human research. The successful proposal will be understandable to a broad audience. The recipient will be selected based on merit, potential impact of the proposed research, and prospects of the applicant for a successful career in neuroscience thereby exhibiting the promise exemplified by Erik Haferkamp.
The Scholarship
A $3,000 disbursement plus an amount to cover the applicable tuition cost (for up to two credit hours) and fees for the summer semester will be made to the successful applicant's University account at the end of the spring semester. A progress report, not to exceed one (1) page in length, must be completed at the midpoint of the summer and a final report, not to exceed two (2) pages in length, must be completed at the end of the summer. The successful applicant is expected to be engaged full-time in their research project at the Beckman Institute over the summer.
Eligibility requirements
In order to be eligible for a Erik Haferkamp Memorial Scholarship for Undergraduate Summer Research, applicants must meet the following criteria:
- Recipient shall be United States citizen or permanent resident of the United States.
- Recipient's research topic must be in the field of neuroscience.
- Recipient shall be an undergraduate in good standing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- Recipient must be enrolled for the summer 2012 semester.
- Recipient must have already been working in a laboratory at the Beckman Institute for at least one (1) semester prior to the summer 2012 semester.
- Applications must be received by Monday, April 16, 2012. All the application materials (CV, proposal, and letter of support) must be compiled into a single pdf file and submitted at www.beckman.illinois.edu/scholarships/haferkampapp.aspx by midnight on Monday, April 16, 2012.
For questions, please contact .
