Kelly Lufkin, a Hope College junior from Houghton, is one of only 24 students nationwide to have received a 2010 Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship from the American Physiological Society (APS).
The fellowship program seeks to excite and encourage students to pursue careers as basic or clinical research scientists. The awards provide recipients with a $4,000 stipend to conduct research with an established scientist for 10 weeks during the summer and up to $1,300 in support to attend the APS annual meeting to present the results of their work.
Lufkin has been conducting research this summer in the department of exercise science, health and physical education at Michigan Technological University. She has been working in the laboratory of Dr. Jason Carter on experiments related to stress.
Lufkin is an exercise science major at Hope. During the 2009-10 school year she participated in research on a volunteer basis in the laboratory of Dr. Christopher Barney, who is the T. Elliott Weier Professor of Biology at Hope.
Her activities at the college have also included serving as a resident assistant, and women's basketball, cross country and track. She is the daughter of Dr. Kirk and Kristin Lufkin of Houghton, and is a 2008 graduate of Houghton High School.
The American Physiological Society is a nonprofit devoted to fostering education, scientific research, and dissemination of information in the physiological sciences. Founded in 1887, the society has more than 10,500 members, most with doctoral degrees in physiology and/or medicine or other health professions. The society's next annual meeting, "Experimental Biology," will be held on Saturday-Wednesday, April 9-13, in Washington, D.C.