Crystal Austin can't wipe the smile off her face when she talks about her favorite subject--dark-matter halos. In the U's astrophysics lab, she's like Sherlock Holmes, sleuthing out ways to pull the hood off the invisible substance of entire galaxies.

On April 15, Austin and 30 other University of Minnesota Ph.D. candidates got to talk about their discoveries to more than 150 interested visitors--potential employers, faculty members, other students, regents, and legislators--at the first showcase of research by recipients of Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships (DDF).

The noise level in the room was just one indicator of the energy they bring to the research that drives them, on topics from dark-matter halos to deer fossils to the impact of genetically engineering fish to the neurology of how people's brains and bodies work together to navigate from point A to point B. Their research covered roughly 25 different fields, from engineering to psychology.

"The DDF support meant I didn't have to teach this year--and could write my dissertation, instead," said anthropology student Sabrina Curran, the deer fossil researcher in the group. With that boost, Curran was offered a postdoctoral position at the Smithsonian and will be off to Washington, D.C., this fall.

Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships are given to outstanding final-year Ph.D. candidates who are making timely progress toward the degree.  Candidates are nominated by their graduate program's director of graduate studies to an all-University competition. This year, 114 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships were awarded by the Fellowship Office of the Graduate School.

"What makes this showcase so exciting is that these graduate students represent a diverse sampling of work being done across the institution," said Graduate School dean and vice provost Gail Dubrow. "Clearly, both our faculty and graduate students are contributors to the research mission of the University of Minnesota."

Molecular genetics researcher Veronica Descotte got to describe her research related to memory and learning to several potential employers.

"Thank you to everyone at the Grad School for such a great event!" she e-mailed the staff afterward. "I think the session was a great success, and I imagine it will only get better in the years to come."

Support for the first DDF Research Showcase came from biomedical laboratory supplier Beckman Coulter.

Learn more about the DDF Program.

--Gayla Marty

Graduate School fellowship office director Myrna Smith (center) talked with Ph.D. candidates Meggan Craft, ecology, evolution, and behavior (left), and Sabrina Curran, anthropology (right), at the showcase April 15. Photo by Mike Rollefson.

Doctoral candidates Veronica Descotte (left), molecular genetics, and Ramji Venkatasubramanian (right), mechanical engineering, explained their research to visitors at the research showcase.