2010 - Jefferson Scholars Foundation

jefferson scholars foundation 2010
graduate fellows 2007
Rachael Lynn
Beaton
C. Mark Pirrung Fellow
Department of Astronomy
University of Virginia (B.A.) (M.S.)
Lynchburg, Virginia
During the 2009-10 academic year,
Rachael focused on collecting data for
her thesis work, traveling to Arizona
five times and to the Big Island of
Hawaii twice. She worked diligently as a teaching assistant for the graduatelevel
observational astronomy course and received the Larry Fredrick Award
for Graduate Level Teaching for her efforts to revitalize the lab equipment,
dedication to student mentoring, and for work organizing a ten-day tour of
the observational astronomy facilities in Arizona and New Mexico for the
class. Rachael helped to launch the “Dark Skies, Bright Kids” outreach program
to rural Albemarle County elementary schools and started a mentoring
partnership with high school students at the Central Virginia Governor’s School
for Science & Technology. She will teach “Introduction to Modern Cosmology”
during the 2010 Summer Session. In 2010-11, Rachael will focus more on her
dissertation research into the structure and evolution of nearby galaxies as
well as continue to work actively as a mentor and teacher to both elementary
and high school students studying astronomy.
Matthew Daniel
Lerner
James H. and Elizabeth W.
Wright Fellow
Department of Psychology
Wesleyan University (B.A.)
University of Virginia (M.A.)
Nahant, Massachusetts
In the past year, Matt received
his Master’s Degree in Psychology,
advanced to Ph.D. candidacy, and defended his dissertation proposal. He
co-authored three in-press peer-reviewed papers (one of which was firstauthored)
and has three more under review (two of which are first-authors).
He gave twelve invited talks, symposia, or poster sessions at five international
academic conferences. Matt also received several awards supporting his
research and academic achievements, including a Distinguished Teaching
Fellowship, a Doris Buffett Fellowship, and — most notably — the American
Psychological Association’s Early Graduate Student Researcher Award.
Additionally, Matthew has continued to grow the collaborative UVA Autism
Research Group, working on several interdisciplinary projects, including a
community-based treatment project run out of the new Jefferson Fellows
Center. He has also provided clinical services as a child, group, and family
therapist via his practicum placement at the Lafayette School and Treatment
Center. Over the next year, Matthew will provide clinical assessment services
to children via his practicum placement at the Kluge Children’s Rehabilitation
Center through the U.Va. Neuropsychological Assessment Laboratory. He will
also begin collecting data for his dissertation project, and will continue to
administer his community- and lab-based research into social problems in
children with developmental disorders.
Kelly Marie
Peterman
Brian Layton Blades Fellow
Department of History
Vassar College (B.A.)
University of Virginia (M.A.)
Columbia, Maryland
In the spring of 2010, Kelly
successfully passed her
comprehensive exams and received
permission to proceed to the doctoral dissertation. Her dissertation will
focus on the spread of Western-style economic liberalization programs in
Egypt in the 1970s and 1980s, and the debates between the supporters and
opponents of those programs. Kelly spent the summer doing preliminary
dissertation research in Charlottesville as well as in Washington, D.C., at the
World Bank and IMF archives before heading to New York City on a research
trip to the Chase Manhattan and United Nations archival collections. By early
2011 she anticipates travelling to Cairo to conduct additional research.
“The new building and its resources are
going to increase my productivity.
Having a comfortable, convenient,
quiet, and well-equipped workspace
makes it easier to stay focused and
motivated — particularly as I continue
to get deeper into my program, and my
work becomes increasingly selfmotivated.”
Lanier Sammons, Edgar Shannon Fellow
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