Newsroom
Students Win Science Fellowships
Occidental College students Lynne Wetmore, a junior biology major from Westlake Village, and James Gillan, a sophomore chemistry/math double major from Concord, have been awarded prestigious Norris Fellowships to help underwrite their undergraduate science research.
Both students will receive $12,500, which will cover stipends, subsidized room and board during the college’s summer research program, and funding for supplies and travel over the next 18 months.
Wetmore’s research project is titled “The Effects of Size-Selective Fishing Pressure on the Life History Parameters and Sex-change Dynamics of the Protogynous Hermaphroditic Wrass, Semicossyphus pulcher (California Sheephead).” Gillan’s project is titled “Bioelectrical Catalytic System for Cytochrome P450.”
Modeled after the national Beckman Scholars Program, which also makes awards to students in the sciences, the Norris Fellowship is unique to Occidental. The Long Beach-based Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation funds grants, including the Norris Fellowship, in the areas of medicine, education, community and youth programs, science, and the arts. Kenneth Norris, a metallurgist who discovered a way to make steel casings for bullets during World War II, created the foundation with his wife in 1963.