College
of natural sciences and mathematics
Outstanding
graduate - Larissa Balogh
By
Sonya Smith
On-line Forty-Niner
She
has co-authored many papers for professional
biology publications, will begin a doctorate
program in the fall and plans to be a pharmaceutical
scientist, and she is only 22.
This student in the chemistry and biochemistry
departments is Larissa Balogh, and now the
outstanding graduate for the College of
Natural Sciences and Mathematics.
Balogh is thought of first by her “academic
abilities, she’s considerably had the highest
averages in the biochemistry department,”
biochemistry professor, Michael Myers said.
“It seems like [academics] comes easy to
her, but she’s really motivated also.”
Balogh said she is more studious because
of her family upbringing. Also motivated
by her career goals, Balogh said, “I just
want to be able to help people, but in a
way that I can use chemistry.”
Surprised at being named an outstanding
graduate, Balogh said, “you work so hard,
and you don’t know if you get noticed.”
“She’s very smart and she’s also a very
careful thinker,” said Jeffrey Cohlberg,
professor of chemistry and biochemistry.
“She’s very thorough in both her examinations
and attention to detail in the laboratory.”
Cohlberg
also added that Balogh has a 3.94 overall
GPA.
Balogh begins her doctorate program in the
fall in medicinal chemistry at the University
of Washington.
Overall, Balogh has many aspirations for
her future, “My career goal is to become
a pharmaceutical scientist in industry.
I hope to utilize chemistry to develop and
improve drug therapies and thereby improve
human health care.”
She may also work to improve the pharmaceutical
industry by obtaining a master’s so that
she can have a management position at a
pharmacy.
She has already begun this path by co-authoring
several articles. She has worked as a co-author
for an article in the Journal of Endocrinology
along with Professor Kevin M. Kelley and
others.
Kelley said of working with Balogh, “She
is an excellent scientist and is very interested
— she can take very different complex issues
in the laboratory and do problem solving
with them.
“She would like to help human kind and stop
suffering by understanding how cells grow
properly,” Kelley said.
He said of their research related to cell
growth, “we work on growth factors and look
at how they make cells grow.” Kelley added
that this research has a potential link
to understanding why cancer cells do not
grow properly.
She
also has co-authored papers that were entered
in the proceedings of the 2002 Meeting of
the Society for Integrative and Comparative
Biology and for the proceedings of the 2002
Meeting of the American Fisheries Society’s
Physiology section.
Balogh has also received many awards including
a Merck Award in organic chemistry and a
Kenneth Marsi scholarship. Also, she was
named to Cal State Long Beach’s Howard Hughes
Medical Institute Honors in Biological Sciences
program, is on the National Dean’s List,
is on the President’s List and is a member
of the Golden Key National Honor Society.
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