ARKANSAS ACHIEVERS
• Fourteen Arkansas State University students were recently inducted into the Kappa Tau Alpha (KTA) honor society. The ceremony was conducted online because of the coronavirus pandemic. KTA is a college honor society that recognizes academic excellence and promotes scholarship in journalism and mass communication. Membership is a mark of distinction and honor. The students are Omar Almasri of Jordan; Su Min Chae of South Korea; Sarah Roddy of Round Rock, Texas; Moriah Powell of Ridgeland, Miss.; David Sutton of Deer Creek, Ill.; Tali Burress of Alexandria, Va.; Charlie Harger of Auburn, Wash.; Bailey Martin of Arlington, Va.; Logan Mitchell of Cleveland, Ohio; Anna Handloser of Sheridan; Emily Skaggs of Brookland; Wendy Miller of Little Rock; Dixie Shearer of Beebe; and Jodie Miller of Rogers. Handloser was named the top undergraduate scholar and Sutton the top graduate scholar for the 2020 class.
• The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has selected Gary Geissler, Anindya Ghosh, and David Briscoe as the 2020 winners of the Faculty Excellence Awards. Geissler, professor of marketing and advertising, will receive a $10,000 award as the winner of the Bailey Teaching Award. Ghosh, professor of chemistry, was named the UMR Faculty Excellence in Research and Creative Endeavors winner. Briscoe received the Faculty Excellence in Public Service award. Ghosh and Briscoe will each receive $5,000.
• Three students from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock have won a $4,000 prize in the e-Fest Business Plan Competition for their pitch for CloudCare, a smart baby monitoring app designed by a UALR professor. The CloudCare Team was announced as one of 25 finalists from North America in the e-Fest 2020 Business Plan Competition. Members of CloudCare are Claire Herman, a junior finance and economics major from Bigelow; Philip Plouch, a sophomore computer science major from Little Rock; and Justin Priest, a junior finance and economics major from Jacksonville.
• Sophomore Ellen Brady has been accepted into the New York University Summer Songwriters Workshop. Brady, one of 42 applicants from around the world to receive an acceptance, will participate in an intensive seminar June 15-26. "I cannot describe the excitement and shock I felt when I opened the email from NYU," Brady said. "I applied to the program in the first place just to receive some feedback on the songs I had recorded, never expecting to actually get accepted considering how well-known and famous this workshop is." During the two-week workshop, which will be held online this year because of the pandemic, Brady will hone her craft through instruction, targeted assignments and critique from a faculty of acclaimed songwriters in a variety of musical genres. The program also features extensive collaboration, daily peer review and panels providing discussion on the integral aspects of the record business as well as songwriters' rights.
• Mount St. Mary Academy senior has been named a winner in one of this year's Thea Foundation Scholarship Competitions. Sophie Mammarelli was awarded the $2,500 Editing Scholarship in the 2020 Film Scholarship Competition. High school seniors from across the state were invited to submit films to this year's competition in one of the following categories: screenwriting, directing, cinematography and editing. Entries were judged by the Arkansas Cinema Society, and only four $2,500 scholarships were awarded. Mammarelli's scholarship-winning short film, starring classmate America Alejandri, represented her interpretation of this year's competition theme: "Brilliant, radiant, overcoming the senses."
• Junior Caroline Gunderman was honored with the Governor's Award in the 2020 Governor's Young Artist Competition. Her pencil drawing, Wisdom, was chosen by Gov. Asa Hutchinson from the nearly 100 pieces selected for exhibition in the Governor's Mansion in February. All three of the works that Gunderman submitted for this year's competition were selected for display in the Governor's Mansion. Her piece, Yellow Wallpaper, received an honorable mention.
• Mount St. Mary Academy senior, Livvie Falcon, placed ninth and won a $2,000 scholarship in this year's Thea Foundation Visual Arts Scholarship Competition. Her winning abstract portrait, inspired by her grandmother, represented Falcon's interpretation of the 2020 competition theme: "Brilliant, radiant, overcoming the senses."
• Four Mount St. Mary senior art students were recently awarded scholarships from the Arkansas Young Artist Association despite this year's spring convention being canceled because of the pandemic. Audrey Caruthers won the organization's top award, the $750 Carmen "Allie" Thompson Memorial Scholarship. Also, Cecilia Ilg, Amelia Ochoa and Maria Thomas each received one of 14 $500 scholarships awarded by the association.
• Arkansas State University announced that two ASU students were offered Fulbright grants for the 2020-21 academic year by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Zhedrick Jackson of Jonesboro and Gianna Confer of Jonesboro were selected from more than 10,000 applicants nationwide. This is the fourth consecutive year that ASU students have been selected for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Both will be teaching English in their respective destinations. Jackson is headed to Colombia to work with university students, and Confer will go to the Czech Republic to work with high school students in a rural area.
Arkansas Achievers is an opportunity to give recognition to Arkansans for their achievements.
Civilian and military achievements are accepted.
Please follow these guidelines:
Achiever(s):
1) Must be an Arkansan or have graduated from a school in Arkansas.
2) Received an award, scholarship, medal or promotion.
Pageants, deans' lists, graduations or military enlistments are not accepted.
No photographs please.
To submit an achiever email us at news@arkansasonline.com with the words "Arkansas Achievers" in the subject line.
SundayMonday on 05/10/2020