Sang Hoon Um (left) receives the Fearnot-Laufman-Greatbatch Award from Leo Green, assistant professor of biomedical engineering.

Originally called the Fearnot Prize and first presented in 1992, this award was established and funded by Neal E. Fearnot, president of MED Institute Incorporated and Cook Advanced Technologies, as well as vice president of Cook Group Incorporated.

Fearnot recognized the value of providing students with the opportunity to present their research after his own such experience as a graduate student. Today, second-year doctoral students in the Weldon School and in the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences Program have the opportunity to present their research through the Summer Seminar series. Feedback from the audience is shared with the presenters as part of their graduate student training. The evaluation results are also summarized to determine the best presentation of the summer and the winner of the Fearnot-Laufman-Greatbatch Award.

Twenty-one students presented on their research in the Summer 2022 virtual seminar series. Um's presentation entitled “Retooling the neuronal membrane channel with DNA origami," received the best average overall score as well as the highest percentage of perfect ratings.