Page 18 - UMN Chemnews December 2020
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Alumni Honors... continued from page 17
Alumnus Anthony Tabet receives Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship
 Larson writes mystery novel
RICHARD A. LARSON, PH.D., who earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1963, has written
a science “in” mystery novel, “Degrees of Freedom.”
Larson earned his doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign in 1968. He is a pro- fessor emeritus from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he taught environmental chemistry from 1979 to 2003, with expertise in environmental chem- istry, natural products chemistry, and soil and water science.
Semi-retired after 24 years as a professor, Larson decided to write a murder mystery novel that he feels more accurately portrays scientists’ lives as people. His novel focuses on the mysterious death of a college chemistry professor.
Larson is a native of North Dakota, but has lived in Monticello, MN, since 1990.
  Anthony Tabet
ALUMNUS ANTHONY TABET received a 2020 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.
The competi-
tive Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New
Americans program
hydrogels for biomedical applications in the central nervous system.
Anthony is passionate about translating research ideas from the lab into a commercial- ized technology. While living in Minneapolis, Anthony became frustrated with the barriers entrepreneurs face in starting companies in the Midwest. He cofounded the company CoCreateX to streamline how scientists and engineers find resources, capital, and commu- nity. When Anthony was 21, he was named to Minnesota Business magazine’s “35 Under 35.”
Now pursuing a doctorate in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Anthony is creating brain-ma- chine interfaces that can permanently integrate into the brain and be used to study or treat brain tumors like glioblastoma. After his training, Anthony hopes to start a research lab at a university that can perform both fundamental and translational research on technologies that can improve human health in the most challenging-to-treat diseases.
“At a time when anti-immigrant sentiment
is rising at an alarming rate, the state of Minnesota has and continues to be a steadfast national leader in supporting immigrants
and New Americans,” said Anthony. “I really cannot overstate the extent to which I owe my entire career to the investments the state and the University of Minnesota made in me. The state was tremendously welcoming to my family and me as new immigrants from the Middle East. They gave me the oppor- tunity to start as a full-time college student, tuition-free, when I was 16 years old through the Post-Secondary Education Options program. Paid research opportunities with Professor Aaron Massari and Professor Chun Wang let me focus on learning how to be a scientist without having to take extra campus jobs. If you go look around the Departments of Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering, and Chemical Engineering & Materials Science, you will have a hard time finding a lab without undergraduate students conducting research. It is a very welcoming environment to new trainees, which lowers the barrier
to entry for students, including many New Americans who are interested in starting a scientific career.”
honors the contributions of immigrants and children of immigrants to the United States. Each year, it invests in the graduate education of 30 New Americans—immigrants and chil- dren of immigrants—who are poised to make significant contributions society, culture, or their academic field. Anthony was selected from a pool of 2,211 applicants. Each Fellow receives up to $90,000 in financial support over two years, and they join a lifelong com- munity of New American Fellows.
Raised in a town outside of Beirut, Lebanon, and in Minneapolis, MN, Anthony is not afraid of the uncomfortable heat or bitter cold. Born after a civil war that nearly killed his entire paternal family and forced them to flee to the countryside, Anthony immigrated to the United States with his parents in search of opportunity and freedom from violence.
Anthony went to high school in a city close
to the University of Minnesota and began
his university studies full time when he was sixteen. He fell in love with the chemical sciences, majored in chemical engineering, and worked in the laboratories of Professor Aaron Massari and Professor Chun Wang on polymeric materials for energy and biomedical applications.
Anthony’s undergraduate training was supported by a Wallin Scholarship, Barry Goldwater Scholarship, and an Astronaut Foundation Scholarship. He received an Amgen Scholarship to support a summer re- search project at Stanford University, where he worked in the Professor Sarah Heilshorn’s lab to create inks for 3D bioprinting. After gradu- ating, he traveled to Cambridge University as a Churchill Scholar and received a Master of Philosophy in chemistry, working in Professor Oren Scherman’s lab on stimuli-sensitive
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