Nadine Barrie Smith Memorial Fellows

Photo of Nadine Barrie SmithIn honor of Nadine Barrie Smith’s life and achievements, Nadine’s husband, Andrew Webb, established the Nadine Barrie Smith Memorial Fund (Fund) which is supported by Nadine’s family, friends, and colleagues. The Fund provides fellowships to female engineering graduate students who are conducting research in the general field of medical imaging (e.g., ultrasound, optical, magnetic resonance) at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Fund is pleased to offer two-$4,000 fellowships for Fall 2011. Preference for awarding the fellowships shall be given to students from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

About Nadine Barrie Smith
Nadine Barrie Smith grew up in Chicago and came to the University of Illinois as an undergraduate student in Computer Science in 1982. She completed her Bachelor of Science (BS) in Computer Science in 1985, her Master of Science (MS) in Electrical Engineering in 1989, and her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Biophysics in 1996. Nadine then headed east and served as a Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. In 1999, Nadine joined the Penn State University faculty as a founding member of the Bioengineering Department. She also served as a member of the Graduate Program in Acoustics. She rose to the rank of full professor. During this time, Nadine held a visiting appointment in the Department of Radiology at the Leiden University Medical Center.

Nadine was an internationally-renowned researcher in the fields of therapeutic ultrasound and non-invasive drug delivery and was a Senior Member of IEEE and a member of the World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology. She also was a tireless supporter of promoting the role of women in engineering and science and established many educational programs at Penn State University to this end.

Eligibility requirements
In order to be eligible for a Nadine Barrie Smith Memorial Fellowship, applicants must meet the following criteria:

  1. Be a current or newly accepted female graduate students in engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  2. Be performing research in the general field of  medical imaging (e.g., ultrasound, optical, magnetic resonance)
  3. Be currently conducting research at the Beckman Institute or scheduled to begin their research within the laboratories of faculty members at the Beckman Institute
  4. Have demonstrated academic excellence

Application
The application for the 2011 Nadine Barrie Smith Memorial Fellowship is currently closed.

2011 Nadine Barrie Smith Memorial Fellows

Yue Wang
Yue is a member of the Ultrasonic Imaging Laboratory at the Beckman Institute where she works with Michael Insana of the Bioimaging Science and Technology group. She is a graduate student in Department of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois. Yue's research is aimed at developing a novel shear wave imaging technique that has the potential to bridge molecular, cellular, and tissue biology, and to support medical diagnoses of cancer. She is also interested in exploring biological sources of mechanical contrast in cancer development.

Cac Nguyen
Cac is an Electrical and Computer Engineering major at the University of Illinois and a member of the Institute's Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory, where she works mainly with lab director and Integrative Imaging Co-chair Stephen Boppart. Cac also collaborates with Beckman researcher Jont Allen. Cac's research investigates bacteria biofilm in the middle ear using imaging techniques and acoustic measurements, and she has developed an automatic algorithm for classification of data.