Contact: Bob Ratliff
Three Mississippi State University engineering students are National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows for 2001.
Melissa K. Knight of Bay St. Louis, Katherine A. Taconi of Biloxi and Benjamin D. Womack of Utica are receiving fellowships worth $18,000 annually for three years of graduate-level study. Each also receives an additional $10,500 annually for tuition and fees.
The December honor graduates of MSU were among more than 5,500 students nationwide applying for the 900 NSF awards given this year. Selections were based on academic records, Graduate Record Exam scores and the applicants' research proposals.
Knight received a bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, in biological engineering. She is the daughter of Linda J. Knight and a 1996 Our Lady Academy graduate.
Currently, she is pursuing a master's degree in biomedical engineering at Duke University, where she is working on the development of a new injectable protein matrix for repairing or replacing damaged cartilage tissues.
Biomedical engineer Joel Bumgardner was Knight's undergraduate academic and research advisor at MSU, where she worked to determine if cell culture methods used in one laboratory can be duplicated accurately in others conducting the same type of research. The University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Medical University of Hanover, Germany, also participated in the project, which received the outstanding undergraduate research award at the 2000 Southern Medical Engineering Conference.
Taconi earned a bachelor's, summa cum laude, in chemical engineering. A 1996 D'Iberville High School graduate and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Taconi, she is pursuing a master's in chemical engineering.
Taconi's research is aimed at developing a bioreactor system that produces methane gas from the wastewater of ethanol production. Her research, directed by professor Mark Zappi, is part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Research Consortium for the Utilization of Biomass, which is based at MSU.
Womack also is a summa cum laude chemical engineering graduate. The son of Clyde D. Womack and a 1996 Vicksburg High School graduate, he continues to study in that field at MSU while waiting to enter medical school in the fall.
An extension of work begun last summer at the University of Delaware, his NSF research proposal involves a recently developed silicate material under consideration for use as a hazardous compounds filter.