Senior Amy Rabideau receives prestigious 2009 Astronaut Scholarship award

Syracuse University senior Amy Rabideau is among 18 students nationwide to receive the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation’s 2009–10 scholarship award. The $10,000 scholarship is presented to top science and engineering students who exhibit exceptional performance, initiative and creativity in their field, as well as intellectual daring and a genuine desire to positively change the world around them.

Rabideau is a dual chemistry and biology major in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences, a University Remembrance Scholar and a student in the Reneé Crown University Honors Program. She has been actively involved in undergraduate research activities since her sophomore year, working on projects to develop imaging agents for medical diagnostics at SU, the University of Rhode Island and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Rabideau is a co-author of two scholarly publications that resulted from research using B-complex vitamins to create imaging agents in the laboratory of Robert Doyle, associate professor of chemistry. During summer 2008, she was awarded a fellowship at the University of Rhode Island to work in the laboratory of Geoffrey Bothun, assistant professor of chemical engineering, on research to create imaging agents using lipids and quantum dots (nanoscale materials). In 2009, she was selected as an Amgen Scholar, an international undergraduate summer research program in science and biotechnology funded by the Amgen Foundation. Rabideau’s selection enabled her to work at MIT in the laboratory of Barbara Imperiali, the Class of 1922 Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Biology, on research to mutate a small protein to fit a fluorescent molecule.

Rabideau is a member of the SU Marching Band and the executive board of The College of Arts and Sciences Student Peer Advisors. She also volunteers weekly at Upstate University Hospital, where she assists with music and play therapy programs for children admitted to the hospital. Her goal is to pursue a Ph.D. in the field of biological chemistry.

The Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF) is a 501(c)(3), nonprofit organization established in 1984 by the six surviving members of America’s original Mercury astronauts. Its mission is to aid the United States in retaining its world leadership in science and technology by providing scholarships for college students who exhibit motivation, imagination and exceptional performance in these fields. ASF has awarded $2.8 million to deserving students nationwide. Today, more than 80 astronauts from the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Space Shuttle and Space Station programs have joined in this educational endeavor. For more information, call (321)-455-7015 or log on to http://www.AstronautScholarship.org.