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Amber Carrier is a biology doctoral student, researcher, graduate teaching assistant and president of our Graduate Student Council. She has a hectic schedule — and it’s about to become more so. We’re delighted for her.

Carrier is one of a handful of students nationwide to receive a Christine Mirzayan Science & Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship this year from the National Academies. The highly competitive award helps students develop skills essential to working in the world of science policy.

For 10 weeks, she’ll work at the National Academy of Engineering, one of the four branches of the National Academies, on such issues as diversity in the engineering workforce and in cross-disciplinary efforts between engineering and medicine. She wants to walk away from the experience with a better understanding of the advising and policy-shaping role the National Academies’ private, non-governmental organizations play in Congress and elsewhere.

On campus, Carrier stays busy studying for a Ph.D. in biology — her goal is to earn it by 2010 — and investigating bacteria in the lungs of women with cystic fibrosis. Specifically, she wants to know what causes most CF patients to develop chronic lung infections that are difficult to treat.

Then there’s her work as Graduate Student Council president. It doesn’t really fit into her studies, she has said, but it does fit in with a lot of her other interests, including policy, decision-making and understanding how a university works.

Someday Carrier might put her knowledge and the experience she’s getting now to use as a college professor. Serving on a think tank is a possibility, too, and she said she enjoys advocacy and debate. But she doesn’t want to lock into any one thing too soon, preferring to see what the future holds when she graduates.

We’ll stay tuned. It’s sure to be impressive.