An Indiana County woman attending classes at IUP was awarded the Patricia Hilliard Robertson Scholarship at a recent event on campus.
(From left, IUP Dr. John J. and Char Kopchick College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Assistant Dean Dr. Amy Cook; Zach Hilliard, nephew of the late Dr. Hilliard Robertson; 2025 recipient of the Dr. Patricia Hilliard Robertson Scholarship Anna Cutshall; Dr. Hilliard Robertson’s mother Ilse Hilliard; Scott Hilliard, the late Dr. Hilliard Robertson’s brother; and Women in STEM keynote presenter Bonnie Anderson. Photo provided by IUP)
Anna Cutshall, a 2023 Homer-Center grad majoring in biology and minoring in business administration, was presented with the award on April 7th at the annual STEM Women’s Summit, which is the opening event for IUP’s annual Research Appreciation Week. Cutshall is a dean’s list student and a member of the Biology Club, American Chemical Society Club and is doing biochemistry research. Her collaborative research project “Determining the Ideal Conditions for Linker-Payload Assembly” is one of the projects to be presented this week. She said she was honored with the award, and that Hilliard Robertson’s story along with the scholarship will help her continue to pursue her goals.
The scholarship is in honor of a Homer City native who graduated from IUP in 1985. She died in 2001 in a plane crash in Texas. She had been assigned as a crew-support astronaut for the Expedition Two that was preparing to board the International Space Station that year.
