Jeffrey Vanegas, a junior in chemical and biomolecular engineering (ChBE), has collected a shelfful of honors for their contributions to research and service at Rice.
For their work in the lab of Xue Sherry Gao, the T. N. Law Assistant Professor of ChBE, Vanegas is the recipient of the James S. Waters Creativity Award, which comes with a prize of $1,000. It is given annually to an engineering undergraduate who demonstrates “creativity not associated with a specific course.”
Vanegas was recognized for their work engineering the Cas13 protein for ultrasensitive nucleic acid detection.
Last year, Vanegas received a two-year, $26,777 grant from the National Institutes of Health to research development in Gao’s lab of a CRISPR toolbox for the high throughput discovery of bioactive small molecular drugs.
At the 20th annual Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium (RURS), held April 15, Vanegas won the top poster award for their presentation on the detection of SARS-CoV-2 using engineered biosensors. The paper was co-written with Jie Yang, a postdoctoral researcher in ChBE.
“Jeffrey is a co-author on four of our manuscripts. One has been published, one has been accepted and two more are in revision. Jeffrey is a very hardworking and brilliant undergraduate researcher,” Gao said.
Vanegas also won the Distinguished Junior Merit Scholarship, given to juniors who demonstrate “distinguished leadership and commitment to organizations beyond the classroom.”
For their work with Engineers Beyond Borders, Vanegas won the International Service Award. As a sophomore, they served as head translator, and as a junior, a project lead, helping upgrade the water distribution system in La Prusia, a village in Nicaragua.