Faculty member wins CUR Outstanding Mentors in Research Award

Associate professor Sara O'Brien was a recipeimt of the 2015 Outstanding Mentors in Research Award, as selected by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). 

The CUR web page celebrated Dr. O'Brien's successes with students, and provided the following write-up:

Dr. Sara O’Brien, Assistant Professor of Biology at Radford University in Radford, VA was selected as the outstanding early-career mentor in the CUR Biology division for 2015.  Dr. O’Brien received her doctorate in Zoology from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA in 2009, and began working with undergraduates first at Marion University and then Radford University.  In her time as an assistant professor, Dr. O’Brien has mentored 34 students, and supported numerous student presentations at local, regional, and national meetings.  One of her mentees received special recognition for their research at the Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology meetings, and she has manuscripts in review and preparation with student co-authors.  One student nominator says that Dr. O’Brien “always wanted what I wanted for myself (albeit a wiser version)”, and that Dr. O’Brien “helped me push through my own self-doubt and thoughts that I would never be smart enough to accomplish what I have.”  Her colleagues nominated her because “Mentoring undergraduates is how Sara thinks about her work as a professional.”

For more information, please visiti the CUR awards web page.