You do not have to spend much time with Carly Garrow to know that she is a “challenge-driven person” as she describes in her LinkedIn bio.  From seeking competitive research opportunities as an underclassman at the University of Missouri to recently completing a half-marathon, Carly looks for intellectual and personal challenges and meets them. Spend a little more time with Carly, and you will also learn that she is a generous ambassador for the places and people she sees as having made an investment in her. For these reasons the Fellowships Office is proud to count Carly among our “alumni.”

A 2017 bioengineering graduate, Carly first visited with the Fellowships Office as a freshman at the MU Study Abroad Fair where she learned about a fellowship called the German Academic Exchange Service Research Internships in Science and Engineering (DAAD RISE) program. Given her undergraduate research in biomechanics as an MU Discovery Fellow, Carly was selected for a DAAD RISE scholarship her first year of eligibility (the summer following her sophomore year) to conduct research alongside a PhD student in Germany. Her work in Heidelberg, Germany, in summer 2015 focused on the creation of a sensor and expert-model based training system for laparoscopic suture knot tying. She also trained and evaluated over 50 medical students in 15 hours of laparoscopic suture knot tying.

In the summer of 2018, Carly wrapped up a year of living and researching once again in Heidelberg as the recipient of a Whitaker Fellowship. In the same lab where she conducted research as a RISE intern, Carly demonstrates leadership and expertise as a young researcher by mentoring and supervising a RISE student. Carly writes that she is “excited … to give someone the same great experience as the one I had three years ago.”

That sentiment demonstrates Carly’s long-standing commitment to assisting others, whether through biomedical research or volunteering locally.  As an undergraduate, Carly tutored students in the community because she wanted to “teach kids that being interested in math is not a bad thing. The world needs more engineers and scientists!” She also served as a Fellowships Ambassador, helping build a pipeline of Mizzou applicants for the DAAD RISE program that continues today, and worked as a Peer Advisor in the Department of Residential Life. In a recent email Carly said she is “still promoting RISE and basically any fellowship to anyone who will listen. My most recent victims have been the three RISE students who are here with us this summer. I even sent them to your webpage because your list of fellowships is such a great resource.”

Needless to say Carly is a Fellowships Ambassador emerita extraordinaire and will no doubt continue to represent Mizzou well in all of her endeavors.