Dr. Shana Stoddard, assistant professor of chemistry at Rhodes College and University of Mississippi Ph.D. graduate from 2013, was a 2021 recipient of the Mentor Award presented by the Council on Undergraduate Research’s (CUR) Health Sciences Division. The division recognizes transformative mentoring and advising by higher education faculty across all subdivisions of health sciences—wellness, disease, health care, and health management—with awards in the early career, mid-career, and advanced career categories. Each award includes a cash prize and a certificate of recognition.
“I am truly humbled to receive the Council of Undergraduate Research Health Sciences Division early career mentor award,” says Stoddard. “I am grateful to have a group of mentors myself who have not only equipped me to be an effective and engaging mentor, but who also helped open a space for me to be a mentor here at Rhodes College. Receiving this award just encourages me to be even more diligent in mentoring.”
Stoddard’s Molecular Immunotherapeutics Research lab at Rhodes is made up of a diverse group of students using a combination of computational chemistry, biochemistry, and cell-based assays to conduct research focused on improving patient outcomes with autoimmune disorders, cancers, neurological disorders, and coronaviruses. Several of Stoddard’s students have co-authored papers published in journals.
“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to them their own. This ideology perfectly represents Dr. Shana Stoddard’s role as a professor and as a mentor to her students,” says chemistry major Kennedi E. Fitts ’21. “She encourages students to continue on whatever journey genuinely fulfills them. She does this by sharing the richness of her story—her obstacles and triumphs. She then utilizes such experiences to push her students to discover their own purposes. Through this, she impacts students on a personal level—one that forces them to understand themselves in a way they didn’t before meeting Dr. Stoddard. She truly puts her entire being into making sure her students feel that they belong in the room—and if they don’t, she provides them with the confidence to eventually come to that realization.”
Stoddard received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Mississippi in 2013 and went to work for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Radiological Sciences. She came to Rhodes in 2015 as a William Randolph Hearst Teaching Fellow and joined the Department of Chemistry as assistant professor in 2017.
Founded in 1978, CUR is an organization of individual, institutional, and affiliate members from around the world. Its mission is to support and promote high-quality mentored undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative inquiry.
Rhodes’ Professor of Biology Dr. Terry Hill and Professor of Psychology Dr. Marsha Walton were awarded mentoring awards by CUR in 2020. Professor of Chemistry Dr. Loretta Jackson-Hayes is a 2021 recipient of the CUR Chemistry Division Outstanding Mentorship Award.