Mackenzie Wyllie and Laura Hirsch Awarded Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships

The Department of Medicinal Chemistry extends its sincere congratulations to PhD candidates Mackenzie Wyllie and Laura Hirsch for each receiving a competitive University of Minnesota Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship!

Both Laura and Mackenzie are in Dr. Daniel Harki’s laboratory. You can read more about the work of the Harki Lab here. Mackenzie has been a contributor to the lab’s work examining APOBEC enzymes during her time in the program and Laura’s work in the lab focuses on N-Myc degraders that target Aurora kinase A.

This prestigious award is bestowed upon the University's most outstanding PhD candidates for their accomplishments in highly significant and innovative research areas. It is meant to give the University's most accomplished PhD candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write their dissertation during the fellowship year. You can read more about the fellowship and award here.

Mackenzie shared the following thoughts on receiving the award:

"Thank you so much to the graduate school for awarding me a doctoral dissertation fellowship. I am extremely grateful for the last year of financial support to write my thesis and finish up the experiments that I have been looking forward to completing."

While Laura had this to say:

"I am so thankful to be awarded the doctoral dissertation fellowship from the graduate school to fund the last year of my PhD! Thank you to everyone who helped and supported me through the application process!"

Congratulation, again, to both of these fantastic student scientists on their achievement!