Reaves earns prestigious Homeland Security honors

Joe Caspermeyer, Media Relations Manager & Science Editor
(480) 727-0369 | joseph.caspermeyer@asu.edu

The Department of Homeland Security has honored ASU undergraduate Marshall Reaves and graduate student Brent Satterfield with prestigious DHS education awards. The awards support students who are pursuing innovations that can advance national security interests.

Reaves, a 20-year-old originally from Oklahoma City, recently finished his sophomore year at ASU.

Besides maintaining a perfect 4.0 grade point average, Reaves is seeking dual degrees with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the molecular biosciences and biotechnology program, as well as the Department of Biochemistry, while simultaneously minoring in mathematics and obtaining a certificate in classical studies.

Besides his classroom achievements, Reaves has been engaged in research efforts at the Biodesign Institute at ASU.

Since May 2004, Reaves has worked in the Center for Glycosciences and Technology, led by center director Lokesh Joshi and School of Life Sciences research associate professor Linda Lopez.

The initial stages of Reaves’ research have been carried out under the mentorship of post-doctoral research associate Sasha Daskalova.

“Marshall is that rare student every educator dreams of having in their class or laboratory,” says George Poste, director of the Biodesign Institute. “He is clearly a natural-born scientist, and I expect to see great things from him in the years to come.”

In the lab, Reaves has studied plant biochemistry and glycobiology – the ways plants metabolize different sugars.

Such methods could become important for plant-based manufacturing of therapeutics important for human health.

“The aim is to generate a plant factory for humanlike proteins, because it would be cheap, easy and effective,” Reaves says.

Reaves has mastered cutting-edge laboratory techniques – and, in a year’s time, he achieved enough progress to give a poster presentation of his research at the School of Life Sciences undergraduate research symposium and a NASA poster competition at the 2005 National Academy of Engineering Educators Workshop, where he placed second.

Satterfield, who also earned a DHS scholarship as an undergraduate and will pursue his graduate degree in bioengineering from ASU, says his commitment to the defense of his country was inspired by the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. After the attacks, his first thought was to enlist in the Army, but a friend convinced him he would better serve his country behind the lines in an intelligence position.

With that goal in mind, Satterfield set his sights on bioengineering.

“I am a bioengineer because I feel that math can help us to solve biological problems that would otherwise be nearly unsolvable,” he says. “I love to solve the impossible. The reason I put so much effort into my studies is because I want to help people. I feel I can be of most service to society in the protection of our country, which for me takes the form of developing technologies to combat bioterrorism.”

Satterfield plans to intern at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, Calif., where he completed an internship for undergraduate scholarship and will be working this summer as an employee.

As a husband and father of two, Satterfield takes his commitment to national security seriously and is grateful the scholarship allows him to focus on his family and his education.

“The fellowship allows me to go to school full time and not have a job on the side,” he says. “I get the best of both worlds: to focus on my studies and to spend time with my family.”

The DHS Scholarship Program for undergraduates and Fellowship Program for graduate students, begun in 2003, are intended for talented students that are pursuing paths in basic science and technology innovation to help secure America by preventing and deterring terrorists attacks, threats and other potential hazards to the nation.

Award recipients receive full school tuition and fees, a monthly stipend for nine months and a 10-week paid summer internship at a DHS-designated facility.

Caspermeyer, with the Biodesign Institute, can be reached at (480) 727-0369 or (joseph.caspermeyer@asu.edu).

Price, with Marketing & Strategic Communications, can be reached at (480) 965-9690 or (mbprice@asu.edu).