Vicki Chang is a Dean’s Honored Graduate in Chemistry. She is also a graduate of the Plan II Honors Program in Liberal Arts. In addition to her participation in these prestigious programs, Vicki is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, is the vice president of the American Chemical Society and also serves on the Natural Sciences Council. In addition to these activities, Vicki received an impressive number of honors and scholarships including the Thomas and Elizabeth Merner Scholarship in Natural Sciences, the Dorothy B. Banks Charitable Trust Scholarship, the Elizabeth Sherrell Endowed Scholarship, the NASA Texas Space Grand Columbia Crew Memorial Scholarship, the Almetris M. Duren Endowed Presidential Scholarship, and the Burl Gordon Rogers Endowed Presidential Scholarship. Vicki has published her work on modular fluorescent benzobisimidazolium salts in a peer-reviewed journal. Her honors thesis involved synthesizing analogs of the natural product cribrostatin 6. Cribrostatin 6 is a dark blue cancer cell growth inhibitor with broad power to combat both cancer and bacteria. She was also an undergraduate Teaching Assistant in both 2009 and 2010 for the freshman Research Methods course and has, she says, thoroughly enjoyed mentoring freshmen in their research endeavors. Vicki is also a member of the Orange Jackets, a highly involved group of undergraduate women at UT who are dedicated to scholarship, leadership and service. Her work both inside and outside of the classroom demonstrates her personal commitment to these tenets. She has worked to make the UT campus a safer and more beautiful learning environment, and she was also a Tappee Trainer this year, mentoring brand-new Orange Jackets during their first year in the organization. She has also dedicated her time and energy to serving the wider Austin community in various ways, including extensive voluneering at The Settlement Home for Children. After graduation she will attend The Scripps Research Institute to pursue a Ph.D. in Chemistry. There she will receive funding from a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation to pursue independent research projects. Vicki Chang chose eight different books in many different genres, among them The Imperfectionists: A Novel, How to Cook Everything and Frommer’s New York City 2010.

This week was relentless so here's a quick and dirty shot of the crap I've been keeping on (or at least near) my desk as of late. Let's run down them because that's easy and I can't think of anything else to write about. (Left to Right-ish) nook ereader: The screensaver shown is a scene from a nedroid.com minicomic I bought a while back. I am currently reading "Soul Music" by Pratchett on it. DS Lite (Red): It doesn't get much use from me these days. I've mainly been using it for "America's Test Kitchen" and "Personal Trainer: Cooking." HTC Droid Incredible: Yep, my phone again. Running Cyanogenmod 6.1.0 (Viva la open-source!) Scott Pilgrim Vol 3: Rereading the series because they take me to a happy place. TV Remote: Yup. Mug: 1/3 full of cold Earl Grey. Xbox 360 Controller: Similar to the DS, I've only been using my xbox for Netflix. No time for games right now. Meh Speakers Creative Zen Mozaic: 16 GB mp3 player. 4:3 LCD Monitor: I'd like a widescreen monitor but this one was free and works perfectly fine. On Screen: I run Windows 7, use Google Chrome as my go-to browser, and spend more time than I'd like to admit in Minecraft. Textbooks: Intro to Thermal Physics and Intro Astronomy & Astrophysics. Books from previous semesters that the bookstore wouldn't give me a decent price for, so now they elevate my monitor to a comfortable height. Tedious write-up, but whatever, this week just needs to end.