This award recognizes a graduate or postdoctoral student(s) who best exemplifies the spirit of Sigrid Leirmo, who received her Ph.D. degree in the Department of Biochemistry (1989) and was a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Bacteriology when she died tragically in an accident in October, 1990. Dr. Leirmo was widely acknowledged among her fellow students and colleagues both as a promising researcher and as an enthusiastic friend and mentor.