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By Bill Loftus
Photos by Mark LaMoreaux
“Coming to the University of Idaho was one of the best decisions I have ever made,” Alcocer says. A deciding factor was the financial support he won through a U.S. Department of Agriculture multicultural scholars grant. The same grant helped his elder brother choose Idaho in 2001.
José G. Alcocer began his university career through the CAMP program for farm workers. In addition to the multicultural scholars grant, Alcocer won two research fellowships through the University of Idaho in 2007 from the McNair Summer Research Experience and the Idaho IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE). Alcocer now studies as a graduate student in molecular biology with Bruce Miller, an expert on Aspergillus genetics.
His interest in the fungus also helped Alcocer land two years of the Cell Biology of Pathogenesis Undergraduate Research Fellowship funded by the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE).
“It was fun for me. And it was the key for my project. It required me to do a lot more thinking and designing to carry the project forward,” Alcocer said.
The Alcocer family moved to the U.S. from Mexico in 1995. His parents are farm workers who always stressed the importance of education to their children.
Why study science? “I really like that way of thinking, to have the freedom with your project where you can use your imagination to address a problem and search for something new,” he said.
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