Each April the biology department recognizes some of its most outstanding students as a part of the College’s Final Convocation exercises.  This year’s James R.T. Hewett Award for service and leadership to the department was given to Yonathan Ararso.  Yonathan conducted departmental honors research on tumor immunology and was instrumental in helping to launch both the department’s Colloqiuim student seminar series and the Hampden-Sydney Journal of the Sciences.

Dr. Kristian Hargadon presents the Hewett award to Yonathan Ararso ’13

The department’s H.B. Overcash award, given to the department’s top pre-medical student in the junior class, was given to James Hughes ’14.

Dr. Hargadon and James Hughes ’14

Also at the ceremony, Dr. Mike Wolyniak received the College’s John Peter Mettauer Award for Excellence in Research in recognition of his work with the Undergraduate Phenotyping of Arabidopsis Knockouts (UNPAK) and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Science Education Alliance-Phages Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) projects.