Inaugural Mayberg Fellowship Awarded for Summer 2024

Nick
Nick Hutchison ('25), the first recipient of the Mayberg Undergraduate Endowed Fellowship award.
April 12, 2024
University Advancement

Established in 2023 to provide students in Gonzaga’s Human Physiology program with the opportunity to participate in a research project alongside a School of Health Sciences faculty member, the Mayberg Undergraduate Endowed Fellowship was awarded to Nick Hutchison (’25) for the summer of 2024.

The project Hutchison will be undertaking with Clint Wutzke, Ph.D., is intended to determine the influence of executive function in people with Parkinson’s disease during dynamic balance tasks.

“The project will provide an exceptional opportunity for Hutchison to be directly involved in health-based research and draw from numerous concepts from his coursework in Human Physiology and apply them to improve our understanding of how people with Parkinson’s disease maintain movement function,” said Dr. Wutzke.

Hutchison expressed gratitude for the opportunity this fellowship provides and looks forward to applying what he has been learning in his human physiology classes.

“I am excited to pursue this research experience because I love the research process and I find that it comes somewhat naturally to me,” he said. “This project incites great passion for me, and the idea of being a part of something with such meaning and influence is thrilling. Though I have never been involved with research at this level before, I consider the concept of research and the scientific method to be something I have interacted with my whole life. I think that my previous experiences of professional interpersonal relationships and communication have prepared me well for a data collection setting. Classes I have taken in Human Physiology have prepared me to analyze data and to present the results of the project at conferences and journal articles.”

Teresa “Terry” Slee Mayberg, M.D. (’79), and Marc Mayberg M.D., who both enjoyed careers in medicine and higher education, established the Seattle Summer Biomedical Internship program for Gonzaga students back in 2015, which combined clinical research, shadowing opportunities and educational lectures for students pursuing futures in healthcare careers. The Mayberg Endowed Fellowship takes their impact one step further, by focusing impact on students majoring in Human Physiology.

“The Maybergs made very clear that they value and emphasize the diversification of student experience in various health fields,” explained Hutchison. “They emphasized the idea that students should be able to experience raw, real-world settings of different clinical environments before having to choose what field to go into. The experiences Dr. Wutzke and I can have together as part of this project will allow me to apply information that I have learned in the Human Physiology program to real-world research to help people with Parkinson’s disease.”

In addition to the financial support of the fellowship, the Maybergs have generously committed to mentoring students and leveraging their expertise and networks to add value to the research experience for students. Gonzaga is truly grateful for its driven students who represent the future of healthcare, and benefactors like the Maybergs, who make the University’s distinctive brand of Jesuit health education possible for students like Hutchison.

You can join the Maybergs in supporting students in the School of Health Sciences by making a gift to the Dean’s Excellence Fund today.
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