URGO alum Mathia (Tia) Colwell ’15 was recently awarded the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) through the University of Minnesota. According to UMN, “The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) gives the University’s most accomplished Ph.D. candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year.” If this award is not enough to convince you of Colwell’s academic prowess, she was also awarded the F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award through the National Institute of Health (NIH), which provides two years of funding for her research.
These incredibly impressive accomplishments come after years of study and research that began during Colwell’s time at Augsburg. A graduate from Augsburg’s biology department, her research experience in 2015 under Dr. Ralph Butkowski was a catalyst for her career as a research scientist. “Participating in URGO established a basic foundation of what I could expect in graduate school with developing the logic behind research design,” she said. “I enjoyed the URGO experience so much, that I was thrilled to learn I could pursue a career in research by attending graduate school.” Colwell is currently in the third year of her Ph.D. program, designing and working on a project that investigates the multigenerational effects of arsenic exposure during pregnancy on the epigenome.
Congratulations Tia for your impressive work as a scientist!