UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Doctoral student Molly Rathbun has been awarded the Academic Computing Fellowship. The fellowship is offered through a partnership between the Graduate School and Penn State Information Technology Services. It was established in 1987.
The Academic Computing Fellowship Program supports research doctorate students who have a background and strong interest in computing applications within their disciplines. Through support provided by the fellowship and the use of computing resources, students develop and disseminate new methods for problem-solving within their disciplines.
Rathbun is a doctoral student in biochemistry, microbiology and molecular biology.
Rathbun is researching how to improve our understanding of the Herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) and chronic pathogen evolution by defining the sources and drivers of genetic diversity in new clinical HSV-1 infections. She uses computational and statistical models of population dynamics to study host-pathogen interactions.
According to one nominator, her research is "computationally intense. She is analyzing massive amounts of genomic data to understand the evolution and host-pathogen interactions associated with herpes infections.”
Recently, Rathbun presented her preliminary data at the American Society for Virology meeting and the Bioinformatics and Genomics Retreat where she won the “Best Talk” award.
Rathbun was honored during the annual Graduate Student Awards Luncheon held on April 11 at the Nittany Lion Inn.