Meet Caroline Bendickson
A HudsonAlpha undergraduate trainee awarded a prestigious NSF graduate research fellowship
By: Jazmine Robinson
Caroline Bendickson, a talented undergraduate researcher who trained at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, was recently awarded a highly competitive National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) for 2025. Caroline conducted research in Dr. Alex Harkess’s lab at HudsonAlpha while completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). She was also part of various educational outreach programs starting in high school and trained in Dr. Rick Myers’ lab during the summer of 2024.
The NSF GRFP is a prestigious grant that supports outstanding graduate students pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in STEM fields or education. The fellowship provides a $37,000 annual stipend for three years, along with an allowance for tuition and fees. This year, the selection process was particularly rigorous, with the number of awards being significantly reduced compared to previous years, making Caroline’s achievement even more remarkable.
“The NSF GRFP plays a vital role in ensuring that promising students from all backgrounds have the opportunity to pursue advanced research careers,” says Flo Behn, PhD, HudsonAlpha Vice President for Research Administration and Development. “Financial support from the federal government removes barriers and allows these talented individuals to focus on their scientific endeavors, ultimately enriching our research landscape with diverse perspectives and expertise.”
We sat down with Caroline to reflect on her academic journey so far, learn about what’s to come, and really understand what an award like this means to students like Caroline.
Jazmine Robinson: Thank you so much for joining me today. Please introduce yourself and share a bit about what you do here at the Institute.
Caroline Bendickson: My name is Caroline Bendickson, and I’ve been working at HudsonAlpha for over three and a half years now. I began as a college freshman in the Harkess lab, working on a project studying Trillium flowers for about two and a half years. Since then, I’ve done a few computational projects and really gone on to experience a lot of different types of research and explore various questions, which has been interesting.
Jazmine: What sparked your interest in research?
Caroline: I fell in love with science while taking advanced biology classes at James Clemens High School. I’ve always had a passion for learning, so I thought I would become a science educator. The Biotech Academy program at HudsonAlpha led me to genetics and genomics research. The program allowed me to not only conduct research but also really understand the job of a researcher. I was able to witness the importance of mentorship within the role of a researcher. That experience helped me to combine my passions for education and science in a research career.
Jazmine: Speaking of mentorship, has anyone made a significant impact on your career trajectory in research?
Caroline: Dr. Alex Harkess, the first researcher whom I met at HudsonAlpha. He gave an amazing talk about lily pads, and I remember it vividly because I had never really thought about plants in the way that he described them. He discussed his research on flowers – how they are responsible for all of agriculture, and that our ability to control flowers is our ability to control food production. By studying these really complex reproductive plant systems, we have the ability to really impact people’s lives. I had never considered the impact of plant biology research on people’s quality of life, so that was a really transitional moment for me.
Another person who’s made a significant impact on my growth as a researcher is my mentor in the lab, Laramie Aközbek. Laramie started her PhD at Auburn the same year that I started at UAH, and from day one, she’s always been the person I go to, whether I’m brainstorming, troubleshooting, or excited about a new result. She has read every grant, scholarship, and graduate school application I’ve written, helped me build and practice posters and presentations, and right now we’re developing a program together. I could not have asked for a better mentor than Laramie, and I’m so grateful for all of her encouragement and support.
Dr. Sarah Carey, Laramie Akozbek, and Caroline at a conference
Dr. Sarah Carey, Laramie Akozbek, and Caroline at a conference
Dr. Alex Harkess and Caroline at the Biotrain poster session
Dr. Alex Harkess and Caroline at the Biotrain poster session
Caroline and Jennifer Hutchison of HudsonAlpha’s Educational Outreach team
Caroline and Jennifer Hutchison of HudsonAlpha's Educational Outreach team
Jazmine: You were recently awarded an NSF grant. Will you share more about that grant and what it ultimately means for your future?
Caroline: I received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. It will fund my stipend during graduate school and provide funding to the graduate school for my education. This grant gives me the freedom to go to any graduate school in the country, which is exciting because the money will follow me wherever I go. It allows me the flexibility to chart a path that feels right for my career and will allow me to pursue the questions that excite me the most.
My grant proposal was inspired by an experience I had in Hawaii the summer prior to my starting the Biotech Academy at HudsonAlpha. We visited a vanilla farm, and the farmer showed us how he pollinated every single vanilla flower by hand. Upon my initial meeting with Dr. Harkess, I shared this story with him and asked how research and an understanding of flowers could help farmers, which ultimately led me to my first undergraduate research experience.
Exactly three years from the day I started working at HudsonAlpha, I submitted my NSF GRFP about vanilla. It was a moment where I was able to look back on how far I had come from asking this question about a vanilla flower to writing a grant about it, which has now been funded. It was a lot of validation for me that in three years, I had come so far.
Jazmine: My next question was going to be “how important was HudsonAlpha in your undergraduate experience?” but the answer is remarkably evident.
Caroline: It’s huge. We don’t have a lot of plant biology research at UAH, so this was a gap that HudsonAlpha was able to fill. All of my undergraduate research was completed at HudsonAlpha. Every poster I presented, every conference that I went to, it was all because of HudsonAlpha, and that helped me to know that I wanted to go into a research career. Being here revealed that I love pursuing detailed work that can sometimes take years. I wasn’t sure that I would enjoy taking that much time to answer a single question, yet my experiences at HudsonAlpha showed me that yes, it can be worth it to explore these questions and find answers to them.
Jazmine: You mentioned that the NSF grant funding would be able to follow you. Where have you decided to take this next step?
Caroline: I will begin pursuing my PhD this fall at the University of Georgia in the Integrated Plant Sciences program as a UGA Presidential Fellow and an NSF Fellow. This is the program that Dr. Harkess and Dr. Clevenger graduated from, as well as several post-docs from our lab. They were able to show me what a PhD from this program means, and I’m really excited to attend.
Jazmine: It’s meaningful that this funding could have followed you anywhere, and yet you chose a program that holds such significance for our team, one of our key collaborators, and where many of our researchers earned their degrees.
Caroline: I’d like to maintain as close a connection to HudsonAlpha as I can, because this is my ideal place to work. The Institute combines everything that I’m passionate about, from research to education, to sharing our science with the world. After completing my PhD, I hope to continue working in non-profit research. I really value the freedom to explore questions that not only spark my curiosity but also resonate with the communities we serve. I am most motivated by conducting research that feels meaningful.
