Wittenberg alumna Nicole Perry, class of 2014, was recently named as one of 100 doctoral students in the United States and Canada to receive a $15,000 scholar award from the Philanthropic Educational Organization (PEO).

Perry, currently a Ph.D. student in the department of pharmacology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., was sponsored by the PEO chapter in Maryville, Tenn. While at Wittenberg, she was honored as a Mortar Board Fellow, placed as an alternate for a Fulbright Scholarship, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior and graduated summa cum laude in both her majors of chemistry and biology.

Perry also spent a summer doing research on a fellowship from the National Science Foundation Research Experience Undergraduates at the University of Tennessee. A native of West Chester, Ohio, she was one of more than 760 students to apply for the award.

The PEO Scholar Awards (PSA) were established in 1991 to provide substantial merit-based awards for women of the United States and Canada who are pursuing a doctoral-level degree at an accredited college or university. Scholar award recipients are a select group of women chosen for their high level of academic achievement and their potential for having a positive impact on society.

The PEO sisterhood, founded Jan. 21, 1869, at Iowa Wesleyan College, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, is a philanthropic educational organization dedicated to supporting higher education for women. There are approximately 6,000 local chapters in the United States and Canada.