WELLESLEY, Mass. -- Biology professor
Mary
M. Allen has been honored by the Council on
Undergraduate Research for her nationally respected
undergraduate research program in which Wellesley
students engage in scientific research and often
co-author the resulting publication of findings with her.
Allen, who is spending the summer working with four
students in a long-running summer
research program in her department, was one of only
two faculty in the U.S. to be named the first CUR
Fellows. The award was presented to Allen, who holds the
Jean Glasscock Chair in Biological
Sciences, at the National CUR Conference late last
month.
Professor Allen's research on the biochemical and
environmental physiology of cyanobacteria is nationally
recognized and has resulted in more than 35 scholarly
publications. Even more notable is that more than half of
these publications are co-authored by her undergraduate
students at Wellesley. The CUR also recognized Allen for
incorporating research activities into her courses and
for having an impact on the careers of countless
students.
More than 70 Wellesley undergraduates have done senior
honors thesis research in Allen's lab since she joined
the Wellesley College faculty in 1968. Her teaching has
been recognized with the College's highest award, the
Pinanski Prize for Teaching Excellence, which she
received in 1986, and by the American Society of
Mircrobiology Carski Foundation Distinguished Teaching
Award, which she received in 1995.
Allen has funded her lab almost continuously with
external research grants from the National Science
Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health, and
the Research Corporation. She was Program Director of
Wellesley's second four-year grant from the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute in its Undergraduate Biological
Sciences Education Program, and for 10 years was the
Program Director of the Wellesley Biological Sciences
Department's Research Experiences for Undergraduates
(REU) program supported by the NSF.
Allen also has helped extend the model of student
involvement in research to the social sciences as
Co-Principal Investigator of a NSF Award for the
Integration of Research and Education (NSF AIRE). Now in
its second year, Wellesley's NSF AIRE program involves
the collaboration of 15 students and 14 professors in the
social sciences. In addition to working together on
individual research projects, the students and professors
meet regularly as a group to share their research
experiences.
Wellesley
College is a prominent liberal arts college and has been
a leader in the education of women for nearly 125
years. The College's 500-acre campus near Boston is
home to about 2,300 undergraduate students, close to 600
of whom will graduate in the May ceremonies. Wellesley's
distinguished alumnae include First Lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Madame
Chiang Kai-shek, and journalists Cokie Roberts, Lynn
Sherr, and Linda Wertheimer.
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