Rebecca French, a PhD student in the Hochella group, has been appointed to the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors for the 2009-2010 academic year. This is an extraordinary honor, as there is only one graduate student in the university selected for this role each year. Rebecca will deliberate with the Board on the university's most important issues, and represent the interests of all VT graduate students on campus and around the world.

Rebecca obtained her Bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in 2004, majoring in Chemistry and Environmental Science. At Oberlin, she won the Jewitt Chemistry Award and the Harry N. Holmes Chemistry Award, and was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. Following her time at Oberlin, she next attended Cornell University where she was awarded an NSF IGERT Fellowship in Biogeochemistry and Environmental Biocomplexity. She finished her M.S. degree there in 2007 and started her Ph.D. at Virginia Tech in the fall of that year. She presently holds another NSF IGERT Fellowship within VT's EIGER program (Exploring Interfaces through Graduate Education and Research). Her research centers around environmental nanogeoscience. Rebecca wants to pursue a career in science policy and administration.