University of Iowa

The Henry Fund, the University of Iowa's graduate student-managed investment fund, recently was named the top fund in its class based on its performance in 2020. The fund took top honors in the graduate category at the Global Asset Management Education Forum by returning 29.99% in 2020, the best performance of any other fund and beating the S&P 500 index by better than 11%.

University of Iowa senior Amanda Thomas will serve as the band's next leading Hawkeye, one of just a handful of women to do so in the band's 140-year history

Josie Fischels was a finalist in the Personality/Profile Writing Competition of the 2021 Hearst Journalism Awards program. Fishels is majoring in Journalism and Mass Communication, and Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa.

University of Iowa undergraduate students Terry Saul III and Hannah Zadeh are working with Iowa faculty and staff to increase the accessibility and usability of nearly a half-million pages of emails related to the Flint water crisis.

Guowei Qi has been named one of 17 Churchill scholars in the nation. Qi will graduate in May with degrees in biochemistry, computer science, and mathematics and is the fifth University of Iowa student to receive the fellowship.

Thirteen students were recognized with scholarships to honor their work and commitment to women's issues, diversity, and social activism at the University of Iowa's annual Celebration of Excellence and Achievement Among Women They were honored alongside two exceptional female University of Iowa leaders and educators were awarded the Susan C. Buckley Distinguished Achievement Award for Staff and May Brodbeck Distinguished Achievement Award for Faculty.

Current Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) student Michaela Inman has been named the University of Iowa's Student Employee of the Year. Inman is a research assistant for College of Nursing Assistant Professor Julie Vignato, PhD, RN. She was nominated by Dr. Vignato and selected as the winner, beating out the other 67 nominees from this year's campaign.

Senior Kevin Kato has worked for two years in the lab of E. Dale Abel, whose journey as a scientist has taken him from the West Indies to Oxford to Harvard to Iowa, where he leads diabetes research efforts. One constant in Abel's career has been quality mentorship, and he aims to pay it forward.

Master of Fine Arts student Sarah Schlosser has been awarded a 2021 U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) for a summer virtual intensive language and cultural program in Hindi.

Three University of Iowa undergraduates -- Daniel Fu, Arshaq Saleem, and Kartik Sivakumar -- have won the Iowa Neuroscience Institute's 2021 Summer Scholar Award. The INI Summer Scholar program supports Iowa undergraduates planning to pursue research during the summer in the lab of an INI faculty member.

University of Iowa students Nyah Davis and Jack Lynn have been named 2021 Goldwater scholars. Davis is a mathematics major from Des Moines, Iowa, whose algebra research focuses on the representation theory of quivers, or directed graphs. Lynn is a biomedical engineering major from Bettendorf, Iowa, whose area of research is computational biochemistry, specifically RNA biomolecular simulation.

Despite COVID-19 restrictions and the removal of an academic spring break more than 50 University of Iowa students enrolled in Hawkeye Service Breaks this semester to learn more about what it means to be a lifelong volunteer.

University of Iowa students, faculty and staff continued making great strides in research, scholarship, and innovation this past year-despite the pandemic-as standout investigators, inventors, and mentors. While the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) had to forego a public ceremony recognizing their work, Vice President for Research Marty Scholtz said it's just as valued and essential to advance understanding in medicine, engineering, the arts, and the humanities. "While some of the work honored by these awards began prior COVID-19, it's incredible that these researchers and scholars have been able to continue making tremendous progress in spite of the monumental challenges of this past year," Scholtz said. "We're grateful for all these faculty members, staff, and students do to support the university's mission and bring new light to ongoing challenges in the world today."

Despite COVID-19 restrictions and the removal of an academic spring break, Prateek Raikwar and Delaney McDowell are two of more than 50 University of Iowa students enrolled in Hawkeye Service Breaks this semester and learning what it means to be a lifelong volunteer.

Seventy-three University of Iowa student-athletes have been named to the 2020-21 Big Ten Winter Academic All-Conference team. The list includes student-athletes from men's basketball (4), women's basketball (9), men's gymnastics (6), women's gymnastics (11), men's swimming and diving (15), women's swimming and diving (15), and wrestling (13).

It's Saturday and Taya Westfield is hard at work at the Johnson County Public Health Department in Iowa City. Surrounded by a handful of co-workers, Westfield is taking calls, building rapport, and notifying citizens about potential exposure to Covid-19. For Westfield, a senior public health student at the University of Iowa, it's just another typical day as a contact tracer, a job she never planned on doing this late in her college career.

University of Iowa College of Education doctoral student Carly D. Armour received the National Disability Leadership Award for her dedication to advocating for individuals with disabilities in higher education.

After someone is diagnosed with breast cancer, they can face countless hurdles to treat their disease. Even after treatment is complete, however, survivors are many times left with lasting and unexpected symptoms and changes to their bodies. Many breast cancer survivors experience debilitating fatigue, severe fear of cancer recurrence, depression, anxiety, and a now unfamiliar body, amongst other setbacks in the transition. Recognizing these adversities, University of Iowa graduate student Ariana Shahnazi focused her dissertation on analyzing the various challenges survivors face and the types of support that can help them better cope with these challenges.

Abylay Zhexembay has been drawn to math since middle school, but actuarial science was nowhere on his radar. He first learned about the field as he left his hometown in Kazakhstan to pursue his bachelor's degree in the United States. While he had little exposure to actuarial science growing up, his experiences with the field in college have led him to study it on an advanced level in his program now at the University of Iowa.

Graduate student Lincoln Aunan is one of two University of Iowa students currently receiving the Noyce Scholarship in Mathematics, leading him to realize his passion for working with disadvantaged students.

As a sculptor, Kelly Clare is drawn to creating installations where anything can happen. Clare, a third-year MFA student in the School of Art and Art History, makes her artistic magic by presenting everyday objects such as orange juice, pancakes, construction equipment, bread, and prairie soil in new and exciting ways.

More than 275 University of Iowa students who served in leadership positions for Iowa's annual Dance Marathon helped the event successfully navigate the changes to the largest student-run activity by COVID-19 en route to generating $1.4 million of support for the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital.

A University of Iowa College of Law class uses America's pastime to give students experience in arbitration-and an opportunity to earn top honors for written work in a national competition.

Led by executive director Elizabeth Jackson, Dance Marathon's 15-person executive council successfully navigated the changes to the University of Iowa's largest student-run activity by COVID-19 en route to generating $1.4 million of support for the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital.

The coronavirus pandemic has paused many things, but pediatric cancer is not one of them. Despite COVID-19, University of Iowa participants in one of the nation's largest student philanthropies are as committed as ever to helping young oncology patients.

The student-led University of Iowa Dance Marathon overcame hurdles presented by COVID-19 to raise more than $1.4 million for the UI Stead Family Children's Hospital. Dance Marathon is the UI's largest student organization. It has raised more than $31 million since its first event in 1995.

Black History Month at the University of Iowa is a time to celebrate love-be it familial, based in friendship, or otherwise. Four Iowa students share their stories about the mentors and student groups with whom they developed a special bond.

A new practicum course allows University of Iowa students to work with NASCAR and Fox Sports executives, getting hands-on marketing experience while pitching Daytona 500 promotional campaigns.

More than 6,100 undergraduate students at the University of Iowa were named to the dean's list for the 2019 fall semester.

The University of Iowa's newspaper, The Daily Iowan was named the Iowa Newspaper Association's 2021 Newspaper of the Year, beating the Des Moines Register and every other professional newspaper in the state. The DI won the association's top honor for an unprecedented second straight year and the fourth time (1976, 1981, 2020, 2021) in the 52-year history of the award.