Contact: Sasha Steinberg
STARKVILLE, Miss.—Six Mississippi State graduate students and a graduate research adviser are being recognized for significant achievements at the university.
Honored formally at the recent 14th annual Graduate Student Association Awards Banquet, they are among more than 30 cited for various personal accomplishments during the 2015-16 school year. The GSA and the Office of the Graduate School co-sponsored the event.
Professor Brian Baldwin of the plant and soil sciences department was recognized with the Outstanding Graduate Student Mentor of the Year Award. A New Mexico State University doctoral graduate who joined the MSU faculty in 1990, he has supervised several graduate students whose research has won praise in recent years from national agricultural organizations.
In addition to Baldwin, this year’s honorees included (alphabetically):
—Caitlin J. Branum, an English major receiving the Donald Zacharias Master’s Graduate Teaching Assistant of the Year Award.
—Alexandra R. Krallman, a business administration/marketing major receiving the Donald Zacharias Ph.D. Graduate Teaching Assistant of the Year Award.
—Shelby L. McGrew of Ocean Springs, an educational psychology/school psychology major receiving the Ph.D. Graduate Service Assistant of the Year award. She earlier earned an MSU master’s degree in educational psychology/psychometry.
—Kevin G. Mederos of Carriere, receiving the Master’s Graduate Service Assistant of the Year Award. An information systems major, he earlier earned MSU bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration.
—Sandra R. Schachat, an agricultural life sciences/entomology major receiving the Master’s Graduate Research Assistant of the Year Award.
—Xi Wang, an agricultural science/poultry science major receiving the Ph.D. Graduate Research Assistant of the Year. She earlier earned an MSU master’s degree in the same major.
Branum, Krallman, Schachat and Wang reside in Starkville.
Additionally, students in the school year’s Graduate Student Research Symposium and Three-Minute Thesis Competition were recognized at the banquet. Information on these individuals was released earlier at www.msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2016/04/msu-honors-newest-graduate-student-research-symposium-winners/ and www.msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2015/11/ready-set-go-msu-grad-students-test-communication-skills-3mt%C2%AE-competition/.
Terrance West of Huntsville, Alabama, was featured speaker for the annual campus banquet. A Meridian native and MSU electrical engineering alumnus, he now leads a major research laboratory at the Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center, a part of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Huntsville-based Redstone Arsenal.
For more on the MSU Graduate School and Graduate Student Association, visit www.grad.msstate.edu.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.