Please note that Maria L. Caleel Memorial Award for Academic Excellence has been retired. See Maria L. Caleel ’87 Memorial Undergraduate Biology Research Fellowships for the funded research opportunities for undergraduates.
This is the highest award given to a senior biology student in each graduating class. This prize recognizes the student with the strongest qualities of scholarship, research, academic performance, and contributions to the undergraduate intellectual atmosphere.
Maria Caleel was a dedicated and involved student who graduated from Brown University in 1987. Approximately one year later, she met a tragic and untimely death while studying for a career in equine medicine at the University of Illinois' College of Veterinary Medicine. At that time, Maria Caleel was ranked at the top of her first-year class. Her family, classmates, many friends and admirers worked together to establish an award to honor her memory - The Maria Caleel Memorial Award.
The deans and faculty of Brown's Biology departments select recipients who have demonstrated dedication to the field, outstanding academic achievement, future promise, and exemplary achievement in keeping with the standards of Maria Caleel who was not able to realize her full potential. Therefore, it is the hope of all those who helped establish this award in her memory that the recognition it brings will encourage the recipient to continue excellence in the field and embody in all aspects of life the virtues of hard work, dedication and strength of character which Maria Caleel exemplified.
Recent recipients: Katharine Hewlett '21, John M. Nicklas '20, Joshua D. Pirl '19, Joseph R. Johnson '18, Cambria Chou- Freed '17, Lucy Xu '16, Samuel H. Church '15, and Vanessa M. Welten '14
