Central Michigan University

This is Central

Darnell Gardner Jr.

Freshman

Journalism major

Hometown: Detroit, Mich.

Received: The Lem Tucker Journalism Scholarship, the university's most prestigious journalism scholarship covering four years of tuition and room and board, worth nearly $80,000.

Early start: Darnell was editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper.

Following in big footsteps: "Journalism, as part of the media, is the best way to further force prejudice out of the American zeitgeist and into history books. Lem Tucker's work in journalism set a reputable standard for all journalists, minority and non-minority alike."

Learn more about the Lem Tucker Journalism Scholarship or related speaker series event.

Julie Mitchell

Junior

Engineering major

Hometown: Midland, Mich.

Involvement: This fall Julie joined the student research team working on the Smart Cane - a device that detects obstacles and provides navigation cues for the visually impaired by using Radio Frequency Identification technology - similar to what some major retailers use to tag merchandise to prevent theft.

Why CMU? "I'm really excited to be working on this project. I'm getting real experience, and we're using engineering as a practical application as opposed to in the classroom where it's all just problems in a book. With this project, we're actually able to apply it to daily life, and hopefully one day we'll be able to help a lot of people."

Her aspiration: "In the U.S. alone there are more than 1 million people who are visually impaired. I really believe this technology will one day make a big difference."

Learn more about the Smart Cane project.

Steve Witte

Junior

Biomedical sciences and neuroscience major

Hometown: Grand Rapids, Mich.

How Steve gets experience: By the time he graduates, his name will be published in at least three medical journal articles that highlight his research on Huntington's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders that affect thousands of people across the United States.

His success: "I was accepted for an internship at the National Institutes of Health this past summer, and I had an interview with one of the top labs at Harvard also, which were both because of the techniques and experience I gained at CMU."

Click here to learn more about Steve's research.