Fellowships in nutrition research to be awarded to graduate students pursuing research on aspects of nutrition as an important context for critical factors related to health and wellbeing, including but not limited to movement and physical activity, healthy aging, overweight and obesity, health inequalities, and vascular health.
Distributed last cycle: $3,800
Deadline: Applications are no longer being taken for the 2023-24 scholarship cycle
Background: Roger W. Drinkwalter was born in Zumbro Falls, Minnesota, and raised on a farm. After beginning his undergraduate education at the Rochester Community College, he transferred to the University of Minnesota's College of Agriculture. He interrupted his education to join the USAF (then the Army Air Corp) during WWII, and was trained as a pilot. When his plane was shot down in 1945, he became a POW in Barth, Germany; later that year he was liberated.
Following the war, he returned to the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1946 with a B.S. in Dairy Production, and marrying Ann Thompson, his college sweetheart, the following year. Ann, who was born in 1923 in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, left her hometown to attend the University of Minnesota, where she majored in Dietetics, earning a B.S. from the College of Human Ecology (now the College of Education and Human Development, or CEHD) in 1945. After they married in 1947, the couple relocated to San Francisco, where Roger worked in the dairy industry in sales, subsequently moving to Fort Bragg, San Luis Obispo, and, finally, to San Diego, where they settled.
They raised two daughters, Julie and Jane, and Ann pursued her career as a hospital dietitian as well as multiple hobbies, including gardening, exercising, community building, and socializing with family and friends. Roger remained active with his fraternity, military, and other groups (including Rotary, MOAAA, Alpha Gamma Rho, Toastmasters, and the Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge), and after retiring from the dairy industry, Roger commenced a second successful career in the commercial and home mortgage industry. Following his (second) retirement, the couple traveled extensively, visiting many continents and exercising their curiosity about the world and taste for adventure. Roger's death in 2014 marked the end of a full, happy, active, and accomplished life, and a 66-year-long marriage with Ann that had brought them great joy.
Ann Drinkwalter has established this endowment as a continuing legacy to Roger's and her mutual, lifelong interest and professional dedication to food and nutrition related fields. This fellowship will support graduate students in CEHD who are pursuing research in nutrition as an important context for critical factors related to health and wellbeing.
Application criteria: To be eligible for consideration, the student shall be students who are:
Selection process: Director of Graduate Studies and Graduate Education Committee (GEC)
Selection committee: Director of Graduate Studies and Graduate Education Committee (GEC)
Contact: Jonathan Sweet sweet006@umn.edu