Kiana Magee Wins 2023 Blackiston Fellowship

The University of Kansas Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi is pleased to honor Kiana Nicole Magee as the winner of its 2023 James Blackiston Memorial Graduate Fellowship and the chapter's nominee for a national Phi Kappa Phi fellowship.

Each year, this chapter of Phi Kappa Phi awards a fifteen-hundred-dollar fellowship for graduate education to a deserving initiate.  This fellowship was created to honor the memory of James Blackiston, a graduate student in the Department of Linguistics and an instructor in the Intensive English Center, now the Applied English Center, at KU.

Kiana is a graduating senior, completing the B.S. and B.G.S degrees with majors in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and Psychology with honors. She has earned a 4.00 GPA while pursuing a truly challenging program. The Blackiston Fellowship is the latest achievement for Kiana, who has received multiple honors while at KU, including being named a Topeka Alumnae Panhellenic Council Scholar in 2019, making the Dean’s List all semesters at KU, receiving a Chancellor’s Merit Scholarship, and being named a candidate for graduation with highest distinction.

During her time at KU, Kiana has been active in research in speech perception, cognition, and hearing, first as a volunteer and working her way up to a Graduate Student Researcher position with duties that included training new undergraduate students to collect accurate and reliable data.

Kiana's involvement on and off campus is a true indication of her dedication to education and supporting others. On campus, Kiana volunteered with the University of Kansas Center for Community Outreach, helping members of the Douglas County community. As a member of the Theta Omega Chapter of Tri Delta Sorority, Kiana has been engaged in a number of fundraising events  and making gifts for patients at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and serving on the Sorority’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. For the 2019-2020 academic year, Kiana was recognized as completing the most volunteer hours in her sorority. Between September 2021 and September  2022, Kiana served on the KU Women in Medicine Community Service Committee. Kiana was also one of five founding members of the KU Chapter of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

In the community, Kiana has served as a volunteer at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, with the Young Women on the Move Summer Camp, and with the American Red Cross. She has been also employed by Lawrence Memorial Hospital as a COVID-19 Specimen Collector and as a supervisor with the Douglas County Mass Testing Team, where Kiana organized, oversaw, and worked at COVID-19 testing sites for mass testing and school surveillance. Later, Kiana served as a Vaccine Associate at the Stormont Vail Mass Vaccination Clinic. Kiana has worked as a medical scribe in emergency medicine, primary care, and orthopedic medicine since May of 2021.

After graduation this May, Kiana, who was initiated in Phi Kappa Phi in February 2021, plans to pursue an MD degree at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine.

It is with great pleasure that I present the 2023 James Blackiston Memorial Fellowship to Kiana Nicole Magee.