EC Scholars win 2019-2020 PKP awards

This year, three EC Scholars won Phi Kappa Phi awards. From left, Ananya Koripella, Brooks Holt and Dustin Humphries were selected as PKP award winners.

EC Scholars represented the Honors College in this year’s Phi Kappa Phi award winners at ECU. Ananya Koripella, Brooks Holt and Dustin Humphries were all winners.

The 2019-2020 Eldean Pierce Graduate Fellowship Award winner is Ananya Koripella. Each year, the ECU Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi sponsors a competition among graduating seniors for a fellowship to help fund their first year of graduate or professional study. Named in honor of a former chapter secretary and faculty member in Nursing, the award includes a fellowship of $1500 and a plaque.

A graduate of Panther Creek High School in Cary, NC, Ananya entered ECU as an EC Scholar and member of the Honors College. She is completing a double major in public health studies and Hispanic studies. She has been a member of Dr. Spangenburg’s lab, gaining experience in using mouse models to research the efforts of endocrine-based gene regulation on physiological and metabolic functions of skeletal muscles that can be applied to humans. She is completing her Signature Honors Project under his supervision focusing on the breast cancer 1 early onset gene (BRACA1) to examine its role in regulating muscle function. Last summer she participated in the East Carolina Heart Institute Clinical Internship under Dr. Wiley Nifong.

Ananya has been involved in numerous service projects during her four years on campus and was inducted last year into ECU’s Servire Society. This year she was awarded the Robert H. Wright Alumni Leadership Award.  She was a Residential Scholar and volunteer with New Independence Academy for autistic students. She was the co-fundraising chair for the program and helped raise $4500 in scholarship funds. She has also participated annually in the Dil se Naach, an Indian dance group. She volunteered with ECU Global Brigades on a medical service trip to Honduras. She has also worked as a program assistant at the Women and Gender Office and as a research technician at the East Carolina Diabetes and Obesity Institute.

Ananya also studied abroad in Greece and Spain, and shadowed in the Spanish Interpretation Department at Vidant Medical Center to learn more about the issues faced by Spanish-speaking patients. Next year she will attend medical school and has an interest in global and public health. She would one day like to work with the United Nations’ World Health Organization to address health disparities affecting various populations globally and perhaps volunteer with Doctors without Borders.

The East Carolina University chapter of Phi Kappa Phi recognizes co-winners of the 2019-2020 Outstanding Senior Award. Brooks Holt, an EC Scholar nursing major was one of the two winners. She will receive a plaque and a check for $1000 from the chapter.

Brooks graduated from Northwood High School in Pittsboro, NC. She enrolled at East Carolina University as an EC Scholar and member of the Honors College. One of her passions in high school was working with the Hispanic population in Siler City, NC. She assisted in summer camps and with food programs and a clothing ministry. She has continued this passion in nursing, finding a way to pursue a minor in Hispanic studies despite the extreme time commitments with a nursing curriculum. Brooks was part of Dr. Kim Larson’s study abroad service program in Guatemala where she worked in malnutrition centers and rural clinics. During the past four years, she also partnered with the community group, AMEXCAN (Association of Mexicans in North Carolina), to help in the local Hispanic community. She also started a student organization called AMEXCAN@ECU and recruited students to volunteer to help with community events for Latino people, raise money for school supplies for Latino students and to create a special Saturday event to recruit more Latino student to enroll at ECU. During her spring year, she interned at AMEXCAN as their volunteer coordinator and created a class in Spanish for newly diagnosed diabetic patients. In the spring of 2019, she received an Undergraduate Research Award to return to Guatemala and work with Dr. Larson interviewing 38 families to evaluate the sustainability of a clean water project. She subsequently received the Rising Stars Research and Scholarship award to present her results at the Sigma Theta Tau convention and at Collaborative Nursing Research Day. Brooks has also served the university as a lead CHEM 1120 tutor, a member of Pirates Promoting Community Wellness, and as a College of Nursing Top Performer. She has accepted a position on a general medical unit at Wake Med hospital after she graduates. However, she eventually plans to return to graduate school to pursue her Doctorate of Nursing.

Dustin Humphries has been selected as the Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding First-Year Student for 2019-2020 by the ECU Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi. He will receive a plaque and a check for $500.  A graduate of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, he is an EC Scholar and member of the Honors College. He was an active volunteer in high school tutoring with a local Hispanic nonprofit, which ignited his passion for the Spanish language. Initially, he intended on studying medicine at ECU and combining that with a major in Hispanic studies. He interned in Dr. Darrell Neufer’s bioenergetics lab at the East Carolina Heart Institute. While he learned a great deal, he also came to realize that he wanted to move in a different direction, perhaps serving in politics. He decided to add a second degree in economics. He is currently working with an ECU group called, “Knock Out Nicotine,” to challenge the law that prohibits UNC institutions from becoming tobacco-free. He is currently interning at RISE29, which is an entrepreneurial consulting program, and he works with Good Bowls, a frozen-meal startup dedicated to delivering nutritious food bowls to factory works in the east. Active in service, he has also interned with El Centro Hispano, a nonprofit to support the Hispanic population in Durham, and he has volunteered as a teacher’s aide at Belvoir Elementary School in Greenville, serving a large Latino student population. He looks forward to spending the 2020-2021 academic year studying abroad in Granada, Spain.