 Ford Foundation Fellowship Awarded
Kathy Bancroft has come a long way from thinking she wasn't smart enough to be a chemistry major. She is now working on a Montana State University research team that is seeking answers to the development of the human nervous system. This work has helped her earn a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship for Minorities from the National Academy of Sciences in the amount of $24,000 a year for three years. Bancroft is working on her doctoral degree in cell biology and neuroscience at MSU. Only 60 of the Ford Foundation Fellowships are awarded nationally. The awards are made to those individuals who have demonstrated superior scholarship and show the greatest promise for future achievement as scholars, researchers and teachers in institutions of higher education. "These scholars ultimately inspire other students to pursue an academic career in teaching and research," foundation officials noted. Bancroft is a member of the tiny Lone Pine Paiute Shoshone Reservation 60 miles south of Bishop, Calif. "I took chemistry in high school and I was always good in math and science," she said. She went on to one year of college as a premed major at Stanford University in California and decided she didn't want to be a doctor. She left college and went to work in Indian education programs in her hometown. "Here I was trying to get kids to go on to higher education and I hadn't even done that myself," she said. Bancroft was the mother of two young sons, Franco and Harmey, at the time. When her sons were in junior high they started talking about going to college. "They said that I had to go to school with them. So I started taking outreach classes at Cerro Coso Community college in Bishop," she said. From there she moved to Colorado where there were better schools. She graduated from Ft. Lewis College in Durango, Colo. with a double major in chemistry and cellular/molecular biology. Bancroft came to MSU's graduate program for her master's degree because of the work of chemistry professor Paul Grieco and because she was looking to go to school in a small town. She received her master's degree in organic chemstry from MSU in 1999. Since then she has been working on her doctorate in the chemistry labs of Valerie Copie' and the cell biology/neuroscience lab of Frances Lefcort. "I want to be a researcher and work with students. I enjoy working with students; they're always exciting," she said. She's not sure where she'll teach but hopes that she can return to her home in Lone Pine. She has won numerous awards during her years at MSU including the 2000-2001 MSU Native American Studies, Phyllis Berger Annual Award for Leadership. She is also a member of the American Indian Club, Native American Peer Advising and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. Brenda McDonald
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