Once a Turner, Always A Turner
Our Turner alumni have graduated and moved on to new careers, but their experiences as a student at Stony Brook stay with them.

Michael B. Aguilera, Ph.D. 1999
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Sociology, Rice University
I recently accepted an academic position at the University of Oregon in the Department of Sociology and joined the faculty in September 2004. I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at Rice University in the Department of Sociology. While a Turner fellow, I did research on the labor market outcomes of Latino immigrants, paying special attention to their social networks. I wrote an article that was published in a prestigious sociology journal, Social Forces. The Turner Postdoctoral Fellowship was extremely helpful to me, as I was able to utilize the three years to publish research in a number of scholarly journals, which made me enhance my scholarship, research, and teaching. I am currently working on several articles examining how the current laws in the United States negatively influence the labor market outcomes of undocumented immigrants.

Carlotta M. Arthur, Ph.D. 2002
Assistant Professor, Meharry Medical College, Department of Dental Public Health, School of Dentistry
The financial support the Turner Fellowship provided not only enabled me to attend graduate school, but it also freed up enough of my time that I was able to apply for and receive a NIMH National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Mental Health. This was an important step on my way to being selected as a member of the first cohort of W.K. Kellogg Scholars in Minority Health Disparities postdoctoral fellows. As a Fellow, I spent two invaluable years at the Harvard School of Public Health, where my work in Health Disparities brought me in contact with disparities researchers and scholars both in the U.S. and abroad. It was this experience that ultimately led to my acceptance of a faculty position at Meharry Medical College, where I conduct community-based Health Disparities Research. Perhaps as important as the financial support the Turner Fellowship afforded, was the friendship, camaraderie, and emotional support provided by my Turner fellow colleagues. While a graduate student at Stony Brook, the Turner Fellowship program was for me, in many ways, my “home away from home.”

Erwin George, Ph.D. 2003
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Stony Brook University
The privilege of being a Turner fellow contributed invaluably to my success in the Applied Mathematics program at Stony Brook. Two particular benefits of the fellowship experience stand out: the support, encouragement, and devotion of the staff regarding the full professional development of all fellows, and the sense of community fostered with the other fellows. These benefits combined to provide me with a strongly supportive environment within which to pursue my goals. In a field of study that is almost devoid of underrepresented minorities at the advanced level, the importance of such a refreshingly supportive environment cannot be understated.

Sobeira Latorre, Ph.D. 2003
Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies, Illinois Wesleyan University
Being awarded a Turner Fellowship had a tremendous impact on my intellectual and personal growth. The Turner Fellowship provided me with excellent opportunities to enhance my leadership abilities and to establish some invaluable dialogue and friendship with a group of emerging scholars from all fields. Beyond the financial support that it provides, the Turner Fellowship fosters an environment conducive to important intellectual debates on social and political issues, personal hardship, and the meanings of community.

Juana I. Rudati, Ph.D. 2003
Postdoctoral Fellow, Argonne National Laboratory, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
It is hard to determine how things would have been had one event in life not taken place. It is not so difficult when it comes to the Turner Fellowship. The reduced teaching load, the conference funding, the Turner brown bag lunches are all examples of fellowship perks that, had they not been part of my physics graduate school years, there might not be a Ph.D. after my name.

Rodrigo Perez, Ph.D. 2003
H.C. Wang Assistant Professor, Cornell University, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in the Mathematical Sciences
Becoming a Turner Fellow was a major turning point in my graduate studies. I found a supportive community and enjoyed greater freedom to pursue my research. I am especially indebted to the Turner Fellowship team for their constant help, from simple paperwork issues to the discovery of new opportunities for growth. With them I learned to aim higher; this is one of the major benefits of the Turner Program and one that I always remember fondly.