(Posted April 10, 2001)

Lauren Bierly, a senior at Juniata College studying geology and the daughter of Lynn and Ardyce Bierly of Mount Airy, Md., received a three-year National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship to pursue a master's degree in geology at Purdue University in Lafayette, Ind.

For each year of the fellowship, Bierly will receive an $18,000 stipend for living expenses and a $10,500 cost-of-education allowance that is applied to the tuition for graduate studies.

Bierly, 22, was one of 5,560 students to apply for the fellowship, and one of 903 students to receive the academic honor nationwide.

Bierly has been an active participant in many Juniata clubs during her four years at Juniata. She served as 2000-2001 president of the Andrew Lawson Geological Society, and served as president of the Japanese Club for 2000-2001. She also was a member of the Environmental Science Society, the Conservation Club and the Juniata College Honor Society.

Recently, she and other members of a research group presented research findings at the Southeastern Sectional meeting of the Geological Society of America in Raleigh, N.C. The group's research poster, "Petrographic and Field Relations of a Portion of the Carroll Knob Masic/Ultramasic Complex, Eastern Blue Ridge, Macon County, N.C.," received an award as Best Poster for Undergraduate Research, Section A.

In the summer of 2000, Bierly particpated in a Research Experience for Undergraduates program in North Carolina. She spent seven weeks field-mapping an area of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.