Edward Dale, a 2010 Knox College graduate, has been awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines.

As a fellow, he will receive a three-year annual stipend of $30,000, a $12,000 cost-of-education allowance for tuition and fees, and opportunities for international research and professional development. He and other fellows also have the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education.

NSF received more than 13,000 applications for the 2013 competition. Fellowships were offered to 2,000 individuals.

Dale (in photo above with Knox Professor of Chemistry Diana Cermak, and in photo below at one of Knox College's traditional robot competitions) graduated summa cum laude from Knox, double-majoring inchemistry andbiochemistry and earningCollege Honors for his research project, "Synthesis of Optically Active -Aminophosphonic Acids." He was elected toPhi Beta Kappa as a junior and received the 2010 Harris Award in Chemistry.

Now a graduate student at Northwestern University, Dale is pursuing various molecular research projects. He briefly described a couple of them:

A native of Roscoe, Illinois, Dale said his childhood toys and a love for puzzles led him to this sort of research. "The first article I read related to this area was actually for a short literature review for [Knox Associate Professor of Chemistry Thomas Clayton's] inorganic chemistry class," he said, remembering that he was "immediately hooked."

Being a student at Knox "shaped me in so many ways," said Dale, who co-authored a Journal of Chemical Crystallography article with Clayton and three other collaborators. "Knox was an environment that opened new ideas and ways of thinking to me."

"I really owe a lot to the faculty at Knox," he added. (Photo at left: Edward Dale and his wife, Natalie.)

The influence of Professor of ChemistryDiana Cermak "helped alter my trajectory from medical school (which I now know would have been a mistake) toward graduate school and ignited a passion for research that I didn't know existed through theMcNair Fellowship and an Honors Project."

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2010 Knox Graduate Receives National Science Foundation Award