PORTLAND – Portland resident Sri Dhyanna, a University of Southern Maine physics major with a minor in biochemistry, was named the first recipient of USM’s John S. Ricci Fellowship this summer.

Established in 2006 by USM alumnus and Auburn native Ray Stevens (Class of 1986), the fellowship is named after Professor Emeritus of Chemistry John S. Ricci, whose mentoring turned Stevens from a lack-luster student into a researcher who today has his own lab at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

Stevens’ intention was to replicate a summer experience he shared with Ricci at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, N.Y., while he was a student at USM.

Dhyanna is the daughter of Betty Williams of Auburn and grew up in mid-coast Maine where she graduated from Chop Point School in Woolwich.

She enlisted in the National Guard in 2000 to help pay for her education, and as a member of the 152 Maintenance Co. in Augusta, she spent eight months as a tower guard deployed in Iraq.

Dhyanna wasn’t sure what her future plans were until she received the Ricci Fellowship. “I have been working on my degree for 10 years and wondered if I was chasing rainbows,” Dhyanna said when speaking about her experience at the Stevens Lab last summer, “The Ricci Fellowship gave me confirmation that they were the right rainbows.”

She said last summer was the first time she was able to work alone on scientific projects. Her research consisted of conducting 400 assays on a connexin protein that may have applications for treating a specific skin disorder.

During her time at Scripps, Dhyanna was taken under the wing of Kent Baker, a member of Stevens’ staff, who, like Dhyanna, majored in physics as an undergraduate and now holds a PhD in biochemistry.

To beef up her knowledge of biochemistry, Baker gave Dhyanna a copy of the book “Crystalography Made Crystal Clear,” by Gale Rhodes. Ironically, she was registered to take biochemistry with Rhodes, a longtime USM professor, this fall.

Dhyanna will graduate from USM in the spring of 2008 and is applying to graduate schools.