In This Section:
Working to preserve the environment - Jessica Kikiela '06 (CANR)
Exploring research through a fellowship - Eric Oligano (MED)

Kukielka wins prestigious Udall Scholarship
for her activities at UConn

Photo: Peter Morenus

Jessica Kukielka ’06 (CANR) is the first student to receive a national award through UConn’s new Office of National Scholarships.

Looking at the résumé of Jessica Kukielka ’06 (CANR), one might think that it is a list of achievementsfor someone further along in years.

An agricultural and resource economics major in the UConn Honors Program, Kukielka’s activities demonstrate herabiding concern for the environment.

 “I’m passionate about preservingopen space and farmland,” says Kukielka, who recently won a 2005 Morris K. Udall Scholarship for her work at UConn in farmland conservation and environmental literacy. She is one of 80 college students nationallyto receive the award, which honors the U.S. congressman who championed environmental legislation.

 Kukielka is also the first UConnstudent to receive a national award through UConn’s new campus Office of National Scholarships, which identifies scholarship opportunities for qualified students.

 “Jessica is a wonderful example of the kind of student UConn supports for national scholarship competitions. Her passion for the environment, her related academic and service work, and her leadership in environmental initiativesis clearly exemplary and grabbed the attention of the national Udall committee,” says Kathryn Strother Ratcliff,director of UConn’s Office of National Scholarships.

 Kukielka attributes her concern for the land to her family background.

 “My parents emigrated from Poland with a family history in farming,” she says. “My sister and I are the first to grow up in suburbia, but my mother was always interested in the environment and made sure we spent timeoutdoors.”

 While attending Plainville Middle School in Southington, Conn., Kukielka and her sister, Monica, took courses at Southington High School’s Vocational Agriculture program, which provided the opportunity to spend time at a boarding stable in Cheshire, where they learned to train carriage horses.

 When Kukielka was in high school the stable owner died and the property was sold to developers. Observing the transformation of pastures into developed land proved a defining experience for Kukielka, who has since beenworking assiduously on open spaceand environmental issues.

 In addition to her studies, she works in the UConn Office of Environmental Policy, where among other projects,she is working on programs aimed at conserving water and reducing waste paper on campus.

 “I work with different departments on campus that promote environmental courses,” she says. “Last semester I worked to develop a campus survey looking to promote environmental science in non-traditional campus settings. One of the best ideas was trying to tiea number of the initiatives we’ve been doing here in Storrs to our regional campuses.”

She also has facilitated student research projects focusing on the nearly 60 acres of wetlands on campus. For one project, two undergraduate students, Logan Senack ’08 (CLAS) and Martha Divver ’08 (CLAS), monitored the life stages of tree frogs and other amphibians in vernal pools, which are temporary ponds formed by rainwater run-off.

 Kukielka is busy as co-coordinator of the UConn EcoHusky Club and as a member of Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences. She is also a former president andtreasurer of the UConn chapter of Future Farmers of America.

— Karen Singer ’73 (CLAS)

Medical student wins prestigious Sarnoff Fellowship

Photo: Jeff Theibauth

UConn medical student Eric Oligino earned a Sarnoff Fellowship to spend a year conducting intensive cardiovascular investigations in a research laboratory in the Vascular Disease Prevention Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

A research fellowship came at the perfect time for Eric Oligino: after the completion of his third year at the UConn School of Medicine when a year in the laboratory would help frame his clinical experiences and confirm his interest in research.

Oligino is one of 14 Sarnoff Fellows, a program designed to give medicalstudents the opportunity to spend a year conducting intensive cardiovascular investigations in a research laboratory. Oligino works in the Boston lab of Jorge Plutzky, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Vascular Disease Prevention Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Oligino’s lab work for Plutzky may have far-reaching implications for lipid metabolism,diabetes, atherosclerosis, and heart disease.The Plutzky lab specializes inperoxisomeproliferatoractivatedreceptors (PPARs), which regulate awide variety of genes in response tofat break down.

A number of closely related enzymes throughout the body break down fat and alter PPAR activity, yet the relationship between some of these enzymes and PPARs has not been investigated. Oligino developed a project characterizing the relationship between one of these specific enzymes, hepatic lipase, and PPARs.

“The science we do here is very exciting,” says Oligino, who will continue his lab work until the end of July 2006. “Major diabetes medications work through the mechanism we explore in the lab every day. It’s nice to know the things I’m working on have clinical relevance.”

Oligino says he has always been interested in research. As a first-year medical student he was considering UConn’s combined M.D./Ph.D. program but was concerned about the possibility of four additional years of schooling. A faculty member suggested he take a fellowship to experience life in a research lab.

“I live in a major metropolitan area and I’m within walking distance of the Longwood Medical Area,” he says. “My lab is located there along with Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Boston Children’s Hospital. The speakers and conferences here add to the excitement of the year.”  

Oligino says what he learned at UConn was important to him in securing the fellowship. “During the first year of medical school we learned about and experienced the experimental approach to science and medicine,” he says.“My UConn medical school education prepared me for my laboratory work.”

“Eric is an exceptional student,” says Bruce Liang, chairman of the UConn Health Center’s Pat and Jim Calhoun Cardiology Center, holder of the Ray Neag Distinguished Chair in Vascular Biology and Oligino’s fellowship sponsor. “We’re very proud that he was selected for this most prestigious fellowshipafter a national competition, and it is gratifying for us to mentor and support students who aspire to be future leaders.

“We’re confident that his laboratory experience with Dr. Plutzky will bebeneficial to him in terms of his career, and more importantly, could bebeneficial to the millions of Americans who suffer from cardiovascular health issues.”

— Pat Keefe