An Austin native was awarded a prestigious award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for research.

The Department of Biochemistry announced its 2019 undergraduate and graduate student departmental awards and fellowships, which are given to students in the department and made possible by donations and gifts to the department to fund graduate and undergraduate research.

“It’s always a pleasure to honor so many brilliant young people in this ceremony every year,” said Brian Fox, department chairman. “These awards highlight the hard work of these students, mentorship of their faculty advisors, and generosity of our supporters.”

One of the students honored was Ryan Kempen, who was one of the recipients for the Undergraduate Summer Research Award, which is supported by gifts that fund undergraduate research, such as the Dr. Shang-Chen Pan Fund in Biochemistry, E.W. Hopkins Fund and Henry A. Lardy Undergraduate Research Fund.

These awards help biochemistry majors who got these summer awards get a stipend to work in a faculty lab over the summer without having to take up a second summer job to pay living expenses, and allows students to get full-time experience working in a lab performing research.