The 2010 recipient of the Ellington Beavers Award for Intellectual Inquiry is Dr. Sheryl T. Smith, Assistant Professor of Biology. This award honors the legacy of Dr. Ellington Beavers, former Chair of the Board of Trustees, and is designed to encourage and recognize faculty inquiry in the scholarly and creative realms, thereby enhancing Arcadia’s educational programs and promoting the development of student researchers.

“In her project, Evolution of Chromatin Insulator Sequences: Implications for Phenotypic Diversity, Smith examines DNA sequences known as insulators in order to understand how divergence in these sequences contributes to changes in gene expression,” said Dr. Steve O. Michael, Provost and Academic Vice President, in making the announcement at the Graduate Commencement on May 20.

Smith obtained her Ph.D. in Developmental Biology/Teratology from Thomas Jefferson University in 2003, after which she did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. She came to Arcadia in 2004 as an adjunct faculty member and was hired as a full-time member of the Biology Department in 2007.

“An active member of the Arcadia community, Dr. Smith mentors undergraduate students who work with her in her laboratory, all of whom have gone on to graduate school or to work in academic laboratories,” noted Michael. “It is a great honor and privilege to present the Ellington Beavers Award for Intellectual Inquiry to Dr. Sheryl T. Smith.”