Provost Award winners plan futures of scientific research

By Mark Muckenfuss

A love of research ties this year’s Cal State Monterey Bay provost award winners together. Olivia Beaudoin, recipient of the Provost Graduate Award for Exemplary Academic Achievement, came to CSUMB specifically to study marine life. On the other hand, Melanie Abarca, who will be given the Provost Award for Exemplary Academic Achievement, only recently discovered her penchant for the lab.

"The Provost Awards recognize students who excel academically and contribute to our learning community,” Provost Andrew Lawson said. “This year's recipients are not only exceptional scholars, but also strengthened our Otter Raft. "I am proud to highlight their exceptional contributions to the university."

Abarca, of Anaheim, is a psychology major who was eyeing a future as a clinician. But a summer internship at the University of Missouri, Columbia, changed that trajectory. 

“I went in with the mindset that I wanted to pursue my PhD in clinical psychology,” Abaraca said, “but I fell in love with relationship research and the MU community.”

Now, she studies parent-adult-child estrangement and plans to expand her interests to explore romantic relationships. 

She recently received both a National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship and MU’s George Washington Carver fellowship. Those fellowships will cover the cost of pursuing her doctorate through the Human Development and Family Science program at MU. She plans to become a professor, a research mentor and a relationship scientist. 

The latter, she says, is “a fancy name for a love expert.”

“The hope,” she said, “is that I will also support the Show Me Healthy Relationships Program (Missouri is known as the Show Me State). It’s a relationship educational program that serves the state. The goal is to provide free relationship education, foster stability and build strong, stable families.”

In her letter nominating Abarca for the award, Jennifer Lovell, associate professor of clinical psychology, praised Abarca as a student and mentor.

“Beyond her impressive academic accomplishments, Melanie stands out because of her character,” Lovell wrote. “What most distinguishes Melanie … is her commitment to uplifting others. Within my lab, she has naturally emerged as a peer mentor. She offers support generously and celebrates others’ accomplishments … [She] is a generous mentor, community-engaged scholar and an emerging leader whose impact extends well beyond her individual achievements.”

A few weeks ago, when Abarca saw that other students had already been notified of awards they’d won, she assumed she would not be receiving one. The news that she did, made her stomach drop, she said.  

“There are not enough words to express how grateful and privileged I am to receive the Provost Award,” she said. “It's a testament to the tireless effort that I’ve invested in my education, my time at the university, and the guidance I have received from my support system. I felt like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is cool, and what I do is cool.’”

Beaudoin also thinks her work is cool. The research she has done while earning her master’s degree in marine science has largely focused on what conditions affect the distribution of Pismo clams in Monterey Bay. During her three years in the program, she has also served as an important mentor and has taught statistics courses. 

Beaudoin “has demonstrated academic excellence through her classes and research,” wrote  Alison Haupt, associate professor of marine science, in nominating her. “She has presented her research at multiple conferences and received multiple grants and scholarships … Olivia has gone above and beyond the average grad student serving undergraduates at CSUMB … The level of mentoring skill and care I have seen in Olivia as an early grad student exceeds that of any other graduate student I’ve worked with and even beyond some faculty.”

Mentoring is something Beaudoin said she fell in love with as an undergrad. 

“This award is really important because I feel my mentorship is being recognized,” she said. “I care so much about the students I mentor.”

Beaudoin plans to continue teaching at CSUMB this next year while applying to doctoral programs. She is hoping to stay in Monterey Bay and study at either Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station or UC Santa Cruz. 

“Monterey Bay is such a unique place for marine research,” she said. “That’s why I knew I had to come here. It's my goal to be a principal investigator at a lab one day.”

CSUMB has been the perfect place to earn her master’s, she added.

“It's such a welcoming atmosphere at the university,” she said. “There are so many research opportunities that students can get involved in. I think it's a great example for other universities. I can hopefully keep that spirit with me as I continue on my academic journey.”