FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Graduate student Zoraida P. Aguilar has been awarded one of seven Summer Graduate Fellowships from the American Chemical Society (ACS), Division of Analytical Chemistry, which is sponsored by Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development.

The ACS Fellowships are intended to encourage basic research in analytical chemistry, promote the growth of the field at academic institutions and in industry, and provide recognition of future leaders in this area of science. The fellowships are awarded to students who have outstanding academic records, research productivity, and research proposals.

Aguilar is a Ph.D. candidate in analytical chemistry and a graduate research assistant in the department of chemistry and biochemistry in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Her research, under the direction of professor Ingrid Fritsch, focuses on detecting Cryptosporidium parvum bacteria in drinking water. Each year millions of people worldwide die from illness caused by ingestion of C. parvum, which is difficult to detect or kill in drinking water.

"Ms. Aguilar hopes that her approach will not only be able to detect C. parvum more accurately, much faster, and at much lower levels than existing EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) methods but she also expects to be able to distinguish between living and dead organisms," professor Fritsch said.

Aguilar, a native of the Philippines, has a bachelor's in chemistry and a master's in biochemistry from the University of the Philippines. She has worked as a research consultant in Japan and the Philippines, and as an assistant professor at both the University of the Philippines and the University of the East, Manila. She was awarded a graduate research fellowship grant for DNA-recombinant technology and biophysics from Waseda University, in Tokyo, and received an Atlas Fertilizer Scholarship at the University of the Philippines. She has also volunteered for outreach projects to the community and for the American Chemical Society.

The first Division of Analytical Chemistry Graduate Fellowship was awarded in 1949, sponsored by Merck & Company. Since then, recipients of these fellowships have made great contributions to the field of analytical chemistry after their graduate work.

The Graduate Fellowship Program shows the beneficial relationship between the academic and industrial communities. Chemical companies that employ Ph.D. analytical chemists sponsor fellowships for outstanding analytical graduate students. Companies benefit directly by being able to recruit the top graduate students in the discipline, and indirectly, by supporting students who will become analytical faculty and who will prepare future generations of analytical graduate students.

The American Chemical Society, founded in 1876, is the world’s largest scientific society with a membership of nearly 159,000 chemists, chemical engineers, and other practitioners of the chemical sciences, and is recognized as a world leader in fostering scientific education and research and promoting the public’s understanding of science.

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