A&S Next

Register by Dec. 19

Turn Your Education into a Career with Passion and Purpose.

You’re a Spider, so you dream big. You don’t want to land just any job after UR, but a purposeful career you’re passionate about.

A&S NEXT is coming up January 30–31, 2026, at the Virginia Crossings Hotel & Conference Center. This career program, specifically for A&S students, aims to give you the tools to understand how you can translate your education into a career you love while building your professional network.

• Meet alums with unexpected and interesting career paths.
• Gain hands-on experience exploring and solving real-world challenges alongside alums and faculty who work to solve these problems in their own careers every day.

Meet the 2025-26 Beckman Scholars

A&S students Brice Di Carlo, ’27, and Eric Zhou, ’27, have each been awarded a prestigious Beckman Foundation Scholarship to support faculty-mentored student research in the sciences.

Beckman Scholars are selected among undergraduate biology and chemistry students based on commitment to research, strong academics, and potential to become scientific leaders. UR has had 28 Beckman Scholars since 2006.

Chemistry major Brice Di Carlo is studying chemical bonding using various computational methods. This work of studying chemical structures and reactions has implications in developing new medicines and improving existing ones. His faculty mentor is chemistry professor Kelling Donald. Di Carlo plans to pursue a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry and aspires to research drug development, including treatments for cardiovascular disease. 

Eric Zhou is majoring in chemistry and minoring in physics. Under the mentorship of chemistry professor Wade Downey, he is studying organic chemistry — specifically indole synthesis, which has implications in the pharmaceutical industry. Zhou aspires to become a physician-scientist at an academic institution and hopes to open a lab researching targeted drug treatments for cancer.