Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Cynthia M. Doffitt of Starkville is receiving the first endowed scholarship specifically dedicated to graduate education in veterinary medicine at Mississippi State University.
Family members of the late C. Edward Couvillion recently established the award in his name as a memorial in College of Veterinary Medicine's Office of Research and Graduate Studies. Couvillion, who joined the faculty in 1985 as an assistant professor of parasitology, was among MSU's leading researchers at the time of his death in 1992.
Doffitt, a Bastrop, La., native will receive an initial $500 award. A Bastrop High School graduate, she holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Northeast Louisiana University and a master's in biology/parasitology from the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
The C. Edward Couvillion, DVM, Ph.D., Endowed Scholarship is designed to recognize top students in the veterinary medical sciences doctoral program who are actively involved in research. Applicants studying parasitology or wildlife diseases are given preference.
A doctoral candidate in the college's department of basic sciences, Doffitt has concentrated her research on digenetic trematode Bolbophorus damnificus, a parasite known for causing economic hardships on the commercial catfish industry in Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. In July, she will present the findings of her investigation at the annual meeting of the American Association of Veterinary Parasitologists.
The Couvillion award will help cover Doffitt's travel to the AAVP gathering in Washington, D.C.
Couvillion was a Baton Rouge native. His widow, Linda Naquin Couvillion McGrath, is a Thibodaux native who continues to reside in Starkville. Their family members remain residents of both Louisiana cities.
Additional private gifts are being accepted to fully endow the Couvillion Scholarship. For more information, contact Keith Gaskin, CVM development director, at 662-325-3815 or e-mail kgaskin@foundation.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.