Students, Grad Receive Soros Prize

Following a year of applications and interviews, Supinda Bunyavanich '99, Deborah C. Yeh '99 and second year Harvard Medical School student Ravi Kamath '97 earned $20,000 plus tuition assistance from the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship For New Americans.

New York philanthropists Paul and Daisy Soros founded the $50 million charitable trust fund last year to assist outstanding immigrants and the children of immigrants in pursuing graduate studies.

Bunyavanich, who learned of the award on Feb. 25, is an environmental science and public policy concentrator living in Quincy House. Her parents immigrated from Thailand to the U.S. when they were students. Bunyavanich grew up in Port Washington, N.Y.

"I was really thrilled," Bunyavanich said. "I think it's a wonderful program because it's not just a scholarship, it's building a community also."

Bunyavanich described how the program brings together the fellows to hold discussions on various issues they face.

"[The program] gives a lot of young people the chance to fulfill their dreams and come back and talk about them," she said.

At Harvard, Bunyavanich has distinguished herself through intense study of both the sciences and social sciences.

"She is the most remarkable young woman I have met in 20 years of teaching," said Books Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development William Clark, Bunyavanich's concentration advisor. "[She is] one of the most remarkable members of the Harvard College Class of '99."

Bunyavanich wrote her senior thesis on research she did in Borneo concerning the germination of tropical trees through wrapping and cooling them.

She sees a long-term career in organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.

Yeh, a biochemistry concentrator in Eliot House, has excelled in many dimensions at Harvard. In her field of study, she has received fellowships to the top-ranked pharmacology department at the University of Texas South western Medical School.

She is also a recipient of the Howard Hughes Undergraduate Biological Sciences Award and a Harvard College Research Program Award.

Yeh has reached the frontiers of research through her work on the relay of chemical messages within cells. She says she aims to become a physician and a scientist.

Kamath received his degree with honors in biochemical sciences from the College in 1997 and said he appreciates the purpose of the New American Fellowship.

"Having a fellowship which pays for a pre-professional program leaves you more freedom once you've graduated because you're not saddled with debt," he said.

Kamath's mentors have encouraged him to combine practice, research and teaching in the medical field.

Brian Wilson of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute sees Kamath as "the rare blend of gifted intellect and industry encased within a modest and wonderfully pleasant young man."

"The fact that [the grant] is there to recognize the accomplishments of people who they think can contribute to humanity--that is something that is especially unique to this award," Kamath said.

In 1956, Paul Soros founded Soros Associates, an international engineering firm that soon included projects in more than 80 countries.

The award is given based on an evaluation of candidates' creativity, originality, initiative, accomplishment and commitment to the values expressed in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.