Kaila Noland, a graduate student at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology/University of Maryland Baltimore, recently received a fellowship from her undergraduate school, Berea College.

The Olive Ruth Russell Fellowship is awarded to females with above average grades who also demonstrate a desire to attend or are in graduate school. This is the second time Noland won this fellowship.

"The Olive Ruth Russell Fellowship is yet another way that Berea College gives back to its students to afford them opportunities they may otherwise not have,” Noland said. “For me, this fellowship will allow me to attend conferences and take an outside course to further broaden my academic studies."

Noland is pursuing her Ph.D. under the guidance of Dr. Rosemary Jagus. Her research is focused on gene regulation at the level of translational regulation. Specifically, she studies the family members of the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) protein family. Her research project is to determine the interacting protein partners of the translational components belonging to the eIF4E family in the dinoflagellate species Amphidinium carterae.