Available Awards

There are a number of awards and sources of funding available to graduate students.  The Graduate School has a searchable Fellowships database which lists awards available internally and externally for graduate students and post-docs.  The Graduate School also provides travel funding to enable full time research-degree students to travel to scientific research conferences or research travel.  For specific information and application materials, go to the Graduate School Travel Funding.

Within the Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics, there are a number of awards presented to graduate students each year:

Best Paper Awards:  An evaluation committee of three faculty members appointed on an ad hoc basis by the DGS will pick what they judge to be the best GGD paper published during the current calendar year.  (Please note that faculty who sponsor students for the award are not eligible to serve on the evaluation committee). All graduate students in the Field who have been first-author on a paper in the current calendar year are eligible, including previous winners and those who have since left Cornell.  If two papers are deemed equivalent, and one of the students had won the award previously, then the award will go to the other student.

  • The Wellnitz Award. This prize is generously provided by a GGD alum, Bill Wellnitz, and is known as the Wellnitz Award.
  • The LPS Award was established by Frank Meleca, founder of the Laboratory Product Sales Company, which sells a variety of products to research labs like those in GGD.  This award is given each year to a GGD student who is first author on what is judged to be the “best” paper published in the previous calendar year.  The award is $500 in cash, and the winner has his/her name engraved on a plaque in the front office.  Next to the plaque is a framed list of all papers first-authored by GGD students in that year.
  • The George P. Hess Travel Award. Graduate thesis advisors from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics are asked to nominate outstanding BMCB graduate students who have just completed their 3rd or 4th year, will be in residence for at least one more year and have made substantial progress on their dissertation research for this award in honor of George Hess, who was a valuable member of MBG.. The student must possess excellent scientific and personal communication skills and be able to present his/her research to both specialists and non-specialists. This travel award (preferably for a national or international conference) is for $500.00 and can be held only once.
  • Calvo Teaching Award.  Both the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Department of MBG each make one award annually to a graduate student for excellence in teaching in a MBG related course.  The Associate Chair of MBG solicits nominations from faculty of their top teaching assistant of the past year.
  • The LPS Award was established by Frank Meleca, founder of the Laboratory Product Sales Company, which sells a variety of products to research labs like those in GGD.  This award is given each year to a GGD student (and a similar award to a BMCB student) who is first author on what is judged to be the “best” paper published in the previous calendar year.  All GGD grad students are eligible, including those who have finished their PhD and left Cornell.  The award is $500 in cash, and the winner has his/her name engraved on a plaque in the front office.  Next to the plaque is a framed list of all papers first-authored by GGD students in that year.