‘Everything is possible at OWU’
Bradley P. Turnwald ’13
Ohio Wesleyan University senior Bradley P. Turnwald has earned a three-year Stanford University Graduate Fellowship in the California-based college’s biomedical science doctoral program. The fellowship is valued at more than $220,000.
Turnwald, of Ottoville, Ohio, will begin his graduate career in the laboratory of H. Craig Heller, Ph.D., who studies circadian rhythm, sleep, memory, and physiology. Turnwald earned one of only 100 Fellowships awarded annually by Stanford to incoming doctoral students across all disciplines.
In his area of study, biology, only 50 of 600 applicants were admitted, and Turnwald earned one of just five Graduate Fellowships awarded in the discipline. After earning his doctorate, he expects to conduct postdoctoral research for a few years and then apply for academic faculty positions.
Turnwald credits his OWU experience with helping him to define his dreams and then to take significant steps toward achieving them.
“Dr. Dave Markwardt [professor of zoology] has been my long-time mentor here at OWU and has helped me in all-things science,” Turnwald says.
“OWU has definitely become my home over the last four years,” he notes. “I think the quality of people we have here from the top of the administration down through the faculty, staff, and students allow for maximum personal and academic growth. I love the passion I see from people on campus.
“Whether it’s about clubs, academics, athletics, or social issues, people here are excited about what they are doing and believe they can change the world for the better,” he says. “There is an attitude that everything is possible at OWU and I really believe it’s true.”
When he visited Stanford, Turnwald says, he was excited by the energy of the campus and the scientific community, and he is confident he is ready for the many challenges ahead.
“I know that I am prepared to begin graduate school at Stanford because of the outstanding faculty that have mentored me in the sciences,” Turnwald says. “I’ve had fantastic instruction in my courses here to complement my research experiences at the [Houston] Texas Medical Center and the headquarters of European Molecular Biology Laboratories in Heidelberg, Germany.”
As an OWU junior, Turnwald also earned academic recognition when he was named a 2012-2013 Goldwater Scholar by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.
He earned the Goldwater Scholarship for research conducted in Texas under the direction of 1961 OWU alumnus Herbert L. DuPont, M.D., director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at the University of Texas School of Public Health.
Congratulations, Brad, on your latest success. You are an inspiration to us all!