Clark School Fischell Department of Bioengineering (BioE) senior Zachary Russ (double major, mathematics) has received a 2011 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG)
Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Defense. The highly selective and prestigious award includes full tuition and required fees for three years at any accredited U.S. college or university that grants advanced degrees in science and engineering, as well as an annual stipend.

Russ, who is interested in developing molecular toolboxes for synthetic biology and biological nanomachines to solve medical and environmental problems, plans to pursue his Ph.D. in bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

"I'm very thankful for the numerous research opportunities and excellent mentorship that being a bioengineering student at Maryland has afforded me," he says. "It really is one of the best places to be."

During his time at the University of Maryland, Russ received a 2009-2010 Goldwater Scholarship, BioE's Outstanding Junior Award, and second place in the Clark School's 2010 Sustainability Video Contest. He has also received praise for his writing on ethics in bio-oriented research. His back-to-back wins in the Institute of Biological Engineering's annual bioethics essay contest and subsequent publication in the Journal of Biological Engineering led to an invitation to pen a guest column on preserving the integrity of statistics in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.