Tom Lopez – 2022 Student Excellence Award Recipient

Tom’s Nomination

Thomas is an amazing undergraduate researcher! I first became impressed with Thomas’ proposal, which was written completely on his own. I only met him after he had written the proposal and was looking for a mentor who would guide his work. While I was initially hesitant to serve as his mentor because I am not an expert in the exact species of fish he wanted to study, I couldn’t take the risk that he wouldn’t find someone to take him under their wing. His passion and expertise was obvious right from the start and I didn’t want his enthusiasm to be stifled by not being able to find a mentor. His ability to convey the importance of his work and the clarity of his intended research design were really impressive. In addition to having excellent scientific communication skills, he also has the temperament and perseverance to carry out his research project. His project suffered several delays that were beyond his control throughout the Fall 2021 semester, but he never lost his desire to set up his project and move forward. While he waited for his intended OSCAR project to finally start, Thomas very willingly took on a small side project to help me optimize the raising of our zebrafish embryos in the aquatic facility. He went above and beyond analyzing our protocol and troubleshooting aspects of it that he felt were inadequate for raising fish to adulthood. Thanks to his meticulous work, we now have a path forward to raising what I hope will be generations of healthy and productive zebrafish in our facility. In fact, the fish he raised in October have already matured and spawned healthy embryos we used in our BIOL323 Developmental biology lab this semester! Overall, I think Thomas is a fantastic undergraduate student and hope to continue to call him my colleague for many years to come. For all of these reasons, I nominate Thomas Lopez.