On Monday, May 19th, the Jefferson College of Life Sciences celebrated its 2025 annual Class Day, recognizing outstanding achievements of students and faculty in its training programs. Two of the most prestigious awards that are conferred on students at Class Day are the Alumni Thesis Prize, and the Frederic Rieders Family Foundation Student Recognition Award.
The Alumni Thesis Prize is awarded based upon thesis committee recommendations for important original contributions to the scientific literature, superior academic performance, outstanding public oral defense, a well written and organized thesis, and a private oral defense before their thesis committee demonstrating breadth and depth of understanding and discussion as a peer. Tyler Fenstermaker, PhD from the laboratory of Dr. Alex Mazo was recognized with the Alumni Thesis Prize from the Genetics, Genomics and Cancer Biology Ph.D. program, and Justin Gumas, PhD, from the laboratory of Dr. Yohei Kirino was selected as the Alumni Thesis Prize winner from the Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology PhD program.
The Rieders Foundation Graduate Student Recognition Award was established to honor students in the Jefferson College of Life Sciences who have made outstanding contributions to the University environment above and beyond academic achievement. Students are recognized for outstanding commitment to Jefferson and to their peer community. Elizabeth McDuffie, PhD was recognized with the Fredric Rieders Family Foundation Award for her service to her peers as an officer and president of the Business and Biotechnology (BizBio) student interest group, for her service as a student liaison and interviewer for Jefferson College of Life Sciences graduate programs, for her contributions as a student representative on the search committee that selected Dr. Susan Aldrich as the seventh President of Thomas Jefferson University, for her award winning representation of Jefferson at regional and national scientific meetings and for her contributions to science policy and science advocacy at the national level during her tenure in the graduate program.