2017 Simon Karecki Award Presented to Sarah Karimi, University of Texas at Dallas

This Award is given in memory of Dr. Simon Karecki who was a student in the Engineering Research Center program and an SRC Fellow. Friends and colleagues of Simon came together to create the Simon Karecki Fellowship Fund in memory of an outstanding individual and researcher to encourage other talented young researchers in the pursuit of environmental research.

We were very fortunate to have Simon’s mother, Anna Karecki, to present the award. Both Anna and Richard Karecki have long been dedicated to the ERC and the support of supports in this program. They continue to consider all the recipients of this award to be part of their family and always welcome opportunities to engage with those who are as passionate about what they do as their Simon was.

We would like to recognize the Simon Karecki Advisory Board members:

• Tim Dalton, IBM
• Bob Leet, Intel
• Chris Lee, Texas Instruments
• Kwok Ng, SRC
• Farhang Shadman, University of Arizona, ERC

Our 2017 Simon Karecki Award recipient is Sarah Karimi University Texas at Dallas.

Sarah is a Ph.D. candidate in her fourth year of study in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Dallas working under the co-supervision of Professors Rockford Draper and Paul Pantano.  She began her collegiate at career Southern Methodist University where she demonstrated her commitment to both chemistry and the environment by graduating magna cum laude with BS degrees in both Chemistry and Environmental Science. 

Sarah began her Ph.D. thesis project in 2014 supported by an SRC/ERC award.  Her project has been to investigate the bioaccumulation, biopersistence, and potential toxicity of model CMP nanoparticles using the fresh water flea Daphnia magna as a model organism.  She was the first person in the research group to work with Daphnia and had the challenge of establishing this model organism in the lab, which she did with great initiative and ingenuity.  She has made significant discoveries on the effects of CMP nanoparticles on this model organism for aquatic toxicity testing. 

Sarah was inducted into the national honor society, Phi Beta Kappa, in the spring of 2013 after receiving numerous academic awards and scholarships.

Congratulations Sarah for your impressive accomplishments and for the great performance on your project at the ERC.