How Chemistry and Leadership Define Lauralee Hurst’s Belmont Legacy

From undecided major to NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Texas

Belmont senior Lauralee Hurst arrived at campus not knowing what specific major to pursue, a predicament not uncommon for a first-year college student. Both her parents work in health science and Hurst always portrayed a proclivity for science, so she knew it was the correct path for her. Choosing an emphasis, however, was a different story.

Discovering What Science to Practice

Hurst began her Belmont journey as a biology major, then quickly narrowed down her focus to biochemistry the first semester of her freshman year. Shortly thereafter, she swapped out the biochemistry major for a chemistry major before tacking on an additional physics major. In total, Hurst made four adjustments to her degree path with the generic “science” label being one of the few consistencies within her DegreeWorks profile. 

“I realized quickly that biology was interesting, but I wanted to get more fundamental,” Hurst explained. “Often times, people describe biology being a zoomed-out science with chemistry being more specific and physics being super specific. I wanted to know more about chemical interactions at a fundamental scale and realized chemistry is what I should study, and my physics classes helped explained what was happening in my chemistry classes.” 

Despite her degree being somewhat in flux early on, Hurst will still graduate in May of 2024 with a double major in chemistry and physics and a minor in math, in only four years. Helping her navigate every twist and turn were her professors and advisors within the College of Science of Mathematics, including Dr. Davon Ferrara, Dr. Beth Bowman, Dr. Justin Stace, Dr. Rachel Rigsby and Dr. Steve Robinson. 

“They make it easy for you to follow your passion and they really want you to do so,” said Hurst. “I was one of those students who was wondering ‘what do I do?’ and ‘is it too late to change my major?’ The answer is absolutely not. Even if scheduling is a challenge, there are people whose job it is to help with that. I even have friends who talk about adding a data science or computer science minor, and it’s very doable within CSM.”

Hurst's Research Experience

Something that never changed during Hurst’s time at Belmont was her commitment to research, something that she described as nonlinear and not necessarily dependent on her current major or future career aspirations. Her research projects formed the backbone of her future endeavors, a launchpad that sprung her to the University of Texas at Austin where she will pursue her Ph.D. in chemistry following her Belmont undergraduate tenure. 

One research project involving the NASA L’SPACE Mission Concept Academy saw Hurst and her team write a proposal that involved hypothetically sending a rover to the moon in search of ice. Hurst was also heavily involved in nanoscience research, dedicating one summer to studying how different chemicals interact with the surfaces of nanoparticles at the University of Texas and studying the illuminating properties of the element Terbium while at Belmont.

NSF Graduate Fellowship Program 

While conducting her summer research at Texas, several of Hurst’s senior lab cohorts were fellows of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP), an ultra-competitive five-year fellowship program that funds three years of a recipient’s graduate research. After digging into the NSF GRFP herself, she applied for the fellowship her senior year at Belmont in hopes of funding her own research upon her return to Texas for grad school. 

“Students are expensive,” Hurst laughed. “The fellowship is great because external funding affords a lot of freedom to you and your professor in grad school — your professor doesn’t have to pay you directly from their funding source for research. That opens up money for other research expenses or even other students to research.” 

Around 12,000 students apply for the NSF GRFP every year and only 2,000 are awarded the fellowship. The two primary criteria that must be met for a student to be accepted are intellectual merit and broader impact merit. The first deals with research experience and the ability to articulate the purpose of a student’s research. The second focuses on a student’s engagement with others, their community and outreach. 

Hurst was one of the distinguished fellowship recipients for 2024, eliminating the worry about project funding for her first three years of graduate research at Texas. 

Accolades such as the NSF GRFP certainly highlight a student’s achievements throughout their college career, but Hurst received another award from Belmont that rivals the prestige of the national fellowship.

Outside the Classroom

With only a few weeks before the conclusion of her Belmont career, Hurst was honored with the University Hale Leadership Fourth-Year Award at Belmont’s annual Scholarship and Awards Day ceremony. The award goes to one fourth-year student who “exhibits leadership, service and perseverance at Belmont and is poised to transform the world post-graduation.” 

“I felt completely honored to even be nominated, much less receive the award,” she smiled. 

To accompany her University Hale Leadership Award, Hurst also received the Dean’s Research Award and the David Driskill Physical Science Award, two honors bestowed upon Belmont CSM students for outstanding research. 

Outside of leading research in the lab, Hurst also served as the president of the Alpha Chi National Honor Society at Belmont. She and her officers made it their mission to engage their members regularly and rebuild the sense of community that they felt suffered during the isolation of COVID. In addition, Hurst also introduced the organization’s first service day in several years. 

“I don’t care if people remembered that I was the leader of it, but I hope things like the service day will continue and those relationships will continue after I’m gone,” she said. “If people remember me at all from my time at Belmont, I want them to remember me as someone who encouraged people from these leadership positions.”