Graduate Student Named Chancellor’s Club Fellow

Edson will use fellowship funds to finish the experiments required for his dissertation.

March 15, 2017 - Chemical engineering and materials science graduate student Julius Edson has received a Chancellor’s Club Fund for Excellence Fellowship. Edson, a doctoral candidate who is creating antibiotics that can reverse drug resistance, will receive a $6,000 stipend toward his graduate studies. The Chancellor’s Club Fellowship recognizes UCI’s most academically superior graduate students, those who exhibit outstanding promise as scholars, researchers and public leaders.

Fellowship awardees are chosen on the basis of their grades, and interpersonal and leadership abilities; they also must be first-generation college students.

Edson, who expects to receive his doctorate this fall, is also a UC Irvine Public Impact Distinguished Fellow and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. He works in the lab of Professor Young Jik Kwon, where he is engineering physically active and genetically specific nanoantibiotics. His research has led to the formation of a spinoff company, Responsive Polymers Therapeutics, Inc., and after receiving his doctorate, Edson will continue working to commercialize his product.

He’s grateful for the Chancellor’s Club support, noting, “The fellowship brings me closer to graduation and allows me to focus on the experiments I need to complete for my dissertation.”

- Anna Lynn Spitzer