UD senior awarded top honor society fellowship

James Sarakatsannis, a senior biochemistry major and a Eugene du Pont Scholar

2:35 p.m., April 21, 2004--James Sarakatsannis, a senior biochemistry major and a Eugene du Pont Scholar from Cincinnati has been awarded a $7,500 Maria Leonard Fellowship for graduate study by Alpha Lambda Delta, a national academic honor society for first year students. This is the top award made by the society, which gives 23 fellowships annually.

A theoretical chemist, Sarakatsannis has been accepted for graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley, Princeton, Yale and Columbia universities. He has visited them all, and decision time is near, he said.

His faculty adviser is Yong Duan, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Sarakatsannis is writing his honor’s thesis on the statistical characterizations of salt bridge in proteins.

Although the focus of his studies is theoretical chemistry with the goal of teaching at the college level, Sarakatsannis is a young man of many interests, ranging from his major in chemistry to his minors in religious studies and Japanese.

He gives high marks to UD and the Honors Program for the opportunities to explore a wide range of studies. “I tell prospective students that one of the best things about Delaware is its flexibility in allowing students to follow a variety of interests,” he said.

While at UD, Sarakatsannis also has had opportunities to travel to Japan and South Africa. Sarakatsannis, who began studying Japanese in high school, spent a challenging summer between his junior and senior year at UD as an intern for Johnson & Johnson, marketing artificial bone products for bone surgery.

His first visit to South Africa was during Winter Session in 2002. He took classes there but also became involved with an AIDS orphanage, which houses about 32 children, an AIDS day care center and also a primary school.

This was a pivotal experience for him, Sarakatsannis said. Upon his return to UD, through the campus chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta, he organized and chaired the Battle for Life Committee, which sends financial aid to benefit South African children. “Among our projects, we are giving scholarships to some children from primary school through high school,” he said.

During Winter Session, Sarakatsannis organized a group of about a dozen UD students to go to South Africa to work with the children’s organizations.

Currently, the Battle for Life Committee is organizing South African AIDS Awareness Week, from April 26 through May 1, at UD.

To relax during the busy last months of his senior year at UD, Sarakatsannis listens to music and plays the marimba.

Article by Sue Moncure
Photo by Kathy Atkinson

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