Recognition

Earlene Durrant was hired as BYU’s first female athletic trainer in 1972. With little to no funding for the women’s athletic training program 50 years ago, Durrant worked from a small corner in the women’s locker room and even took leftover tape from the men’s training room trash in order to care for female athletes. These obstacles didn’t deter Durrant; she was passionate about advocating for female athletes because “women need to be just as conditioned as men to prevent injuries.”

In 1917, when Kamal Ranadive was born in Pune, India, it was rare for a woman to occupy a seat in the local Fergusson College, especially in the sciences. But lucky for Ranadive, her father, who taught in the biology department, encouraged her to pursue an education. She graduated from Fergusson with a bachelor’s of science in 1934 and continued her education to earn a doctorate in cytology from Bombay University.

Margaret Liu grew up with a determined mother who shaped her into a tenacious scientist. Liu’s mother faced racial prejudice as a Chinese immigrant, so she encouraged her children to work hard in school and provided them with music lessons to ensure unique opportunities. She would often tell Liu, “To whom much is given, much is expected,” reminding her that she was held to a high standard.

A notebook in one hand and binoculars in the other, twenty-six-year-old Jane Goodall left England and arrived in modern-day Tanzania to observe chimpanzees in their natural habitat. Her arrival in the Gombe Stream National Park was intimidating for her as she set out to study the huge, furry chimps by living in harmony with them. Even now at eighty-seven years old, Goodall still studies chimpanzees and advocates for wildlife conservation around the world.

It was a splash of ice-cold water in the face. Amy Hernandez’s friend was only seventeen years old and just diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease that deteriorates the body. Hernandez (‘23) was in the second year of her molecular biology degree at BYU. The sudden, early-onset diagnosis prompted hours of research under Hernandez's mentor, microbiology and molecular biology professor Mary Davis, to answer the question: why is early MS onset in ethnic minorities reached at an earlier age than in Caucasian populations?

Also hailing from Europe, marine biology student and Sheffield, England native Rebekah Stanton (’21) wanted to earn her PhD at BYU but couldn’t find a program that fit her needs. After receiving an unexpected email from plant and wildlife sciences professor Sam St Clair, she packed her bags and joined his research team to study just the opposite of marine biology—they were going to study the desert.