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Six students who applied for summer jobs in Biochemistry research labs under the NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA) program were successful in being placed.  They are Shamara Alexander, Madeline Fitzpatrick, Rahul-dev Kalsi, Sachin Waghmare, Brian Harnett, and Luke Richard.  Congratulations to you all!

In addition to the students receiving USRA awards, other students will be working in our research labs this summer as well.  Hiring is done through a variety of programs available at MUN, as well as by supervisors with student funding available in their research grants. 

The search committee for a new department head was announced in April.  Members are Drs. Brown, Cheema, Christian and Mulligan, all from Biochemistry, along with Dr. Igamberdiev from Biology.   Further information will be available from the Dean of Science office as the committee proceeds with its work. 

Final exams are done for another semester, and students are now preparing for convocation.  We expect approximately 70 graduates in total from our Bachelors’, Masters’ and PhD programs.  Final numbers won’t be known until grades are released and applications approved by the Registrar’s Office.

April saw Senate approving a number of changes to our graduate course offerings.  The list of courses available to graduate students had not been revamped in quite a number of years, and so our departmental graduate studies committee reviewed our offerings during 2011.   A number of courses which had not been offered in quite some time were deleted.  We added a series of special topics numbers, added one new course, and revised the title of an existing one.  Students can consult the General Office to see the new list.  Due to scheduling limitations, the new list won’t appear in the calendar until 2013-2014.