The 2006 Graduate School Medal - Rewarding Scholar-Citizens

Two students received The Graduate School Medal in 2006 – Laura Certain, Ph.D. Candidate, Genome Sciences and Karen Rosenburg, Ph.D. Candidate, Women Studies.

The award provides a one-year, $10,000 fellowship annually to two Ph.D. candidates who display an exemplary commitment to both the University and its larger community. The Graduate School Medal is a prestigious award that recognizes the "scholar-citizen" -- an individual whose academic expertise and social awareness are integrated in a way that demonstrates active civic engagement and a capacity to promote political, cultural or social change.

Laura Certain – Medical Concurrent and Ph.D. Candidate, Genome Sciences
Through her studies in Genome Sciences with a focus on the treatment of malaria, Laura Certain has come to understand that an effective career in global health requires more than lab experience. One of her goals in studying tropical diseases at the UW is to raise awareness of the health of the world's populations and she has made it a priority to understand the social, economic, cultural and political dimensions of treating and preventing malaria in less developed countries. For her doctoral thesis, Certain chose to study the genetics of drug resistance in malaria in the lab of Prof. Carol Sibley since both share a commitment to research that benefits underserved populations. Most victims of malaria are young children living in sub-Saharan Africa. Though drugs to treat malaria exist, the ones that have been made affordable in the developing world are rapidly becoming ineffective due to drug resistance. The Sibley Lab works to characterize new anti-malarial drugs and to determine how resistance to existing drugs develops in order to design new drugs that will remain effective for as long as possible. The outcome of her doctoral research will provide insight into the best way to monitor resistance to new anti-malarial drugs.

Motivated by a strong desire for her study of tropical diseases to have an immediate effect on the world, Certain traveled to Mali during summer 2003 to work with a research team collecting blood samples and patient data. Through her work in Mali, Certain was exposed to the medical and practical realities of diagnosing and treating malaria. She gained further insight this past September while traveling to Kenya to collect samples for her thesis. Both of these experiences revealed the challenges of providing treatment in developing countries and brought new perspective in her approach to global health problems. At the UW, she has been able to share and spread this heightened awareness to others through her participation on the Board of the International Health Group (IHG). IHG creates global health opportunities for students at the UW by developing courses and sending medical students abroad, as well as reaching wider audiences with annual conferences involving universities, international health organizations, faith-based charities, non-governmental organizations, and the United States government.

By extending her research in the laboratory to involvement in international and local communities, Certain's work addresses an important interface between scientific innovation and its policy implications. Upon graduation, she looks forward to using the skill and knowledge she has acquired through her graduate and global education to improve the health of populations worldwide.

Karen Rosenberg - Ph.D. Candidate, Women Studies
Karen Rosenberg's work focuses on peace and safety in the home, which she sees as the fundamental building block of a peaceful society. Specifically, her work asks: how can a society best respond when there is violence in the home? What role should the law play in mediating family relationships? What do responses to family violence reveal about the society that enacts them? And, how do these answers differ across national contexts? Working from both inside and outside the academy, Rosenberg has approached these questions through advocacy, teaching, collaborative framing of her research projects, and creating new spaces for critical dialogue. Before beginning her studies at the UW, Rosenberg worked as a domestic violence legal advocate, developing and coordinating trainings for survivors of violence, advocates, attorneys, law enforcement and others. The UW doctoral program in Women Studies has enabled her to bridge the worlds of activism and academia, and given her more critical tools as she seeks to foster critical dialogue for social change in the field of domestic violence.

As a Huckabay Fellow (2002-2003) Rosenberg explored ways to create dialogue in the classroom while working with other graduate students to develop a new introductory transnational feminist theory course. In 2005, she represented Dr. Betty Schmitz and the Center for Curriculum Transformation at a pan-American conference on gender and education in Santiago, Chile. A participant in the Simpson Center's 2004 Connecting with the Community Institute, she learned new tools and strategies for crafting a career as a public scholar and was inspired by faculty speakers who integrated deep social concern with their research agendas.  In her work with the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, she helped develop a domestic violence education tool called "In Her Shoes," which is based on the real experiences of women in abusive relationships. This tool is now used in national and international settings because of its effectiveness in conveying the immediacy and complexity of domestic violence and has more recently been adapted into a version based on the experiences of Latin American women.

Through her many experiences and achievements within the field of domestic violence, Rosenberg has heard an increasingly urgent critique of the law-and-order approach to domestic violence, even from those working within the legal system. Her work with statewide domestic violence training and in-depth discussions with Washington State legal actors has shaped her dissertation research and leads her to ask the questions, "How can the legal system work most effectively? What alternatives to criminalization are being practiced? How are they working?" In her dissertation, she will address these questions comparatively, focusing on Canada and the United States and contrasting responses to violence in the two countries.