Golder receives Alec Courtelis Award for academic excellence

Frank Golder, who earned his Ph.D. in May at the Univeristy of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, has received the college’s prestigious Alec Courtelis Award.

The award, which consisted of $3,000 and a plaque, was presented April 25 during the International Student Academic Awards ceremony at the Reitz Union. Given in honor of the late Alec Courtelis, the award was established by his wife, Louise, owner of Town and Country Farms, an internationally known Arabian horse breeding and training facility, to honor distinguished graduate students for academic excellence and service to the university community.

One of three campuswide recipients, Golder has maintained a 4.0 grade point average during his career at UF. A native New Zealander, he has served as principle investigator and co-investigator on five grants, and has been awarded almost $90,000 in research support in the last three years through the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute of UF. He co-coordinated the department seminar series for the past two semesters.

“To my knowledge, he is the only graduate student to have served as coordinator for this course,” said Donald Bolser, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the college’s department of physiological sciences, in his letter nominating Golder for the award.

Golder’s community service record includes time spent as a career day speaker and judge for the Alachua County School’s Science Fair. He volunteers his time with Operation Catnip and recently ran a marathon benefiting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, raising $1,700 for that cause.

Four other UF veterinary medical graduate students were honored for academic excellence during the ceremony.

Those individuals, all of whom are pursuing Ph.D.s, included Julian Bartolome, D.V.M., of Argentina, whose advisor is Lou Archbald, D.V.M., Ph.D., of the Food Animal and Reproduction Service (FARMS), large animal clinical sciences, and Xuezhong Cai, who is working with Bill Castleman, D.V.M., Ph.D., in pathobiology.

Also honored were Pedro Melendez who holds a veterinary doctorate from his native Chile, whose advisors are Art Donovan, D.V.M., and Carlos Risco, D.V.M., of FARMS, and Kathleen Savage of Scotland, whose advisor is Ian Tebbett, Ph.D., in the area of toxicology, department of physiological sciences.