Titas Bera

NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Program

Titas Bera, one of the all-time greats for The College of Wooster's men's tennis team, was reselected as a recipient of a prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, as announced by the NCAA on Wednesday. He's one of 21 male spring sport student-athletes to receive the scholarship for the 2019-20 academic year.

Coupled with men's lacrosse alumnus Wes Wagner being selected this spring, Wooster now has 19 all-time recipients. They are the first Scots to be selected since the 2017-18 academic year, a year in which Wooster finished fifth nationally among all NCAA institutions (Div. I, II, & III) with three honorees.

"I am grateful to the NCAA and to all the amazing faculty members and mentors who helped make this award possible," shared Bera, who is set to start working toward his M.D. at the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences in August. "Pursuing medicine has been something that I have been passionate about from a young age, and the NCAA scholarship will help kickstart my journey to fulfilling that dream."

"I've said it before, but if a coach could design a player in a lab, that player would come out as Titas Bera," shared head coach Zachary Hasenyager. "His hard work always set a great example for his teammates, on the courts, in the classroom, and around the campus community. He exemplifies what it means to be a successful student-athlete and made the absolute most of his four years at Wooster. I can think of no more deserving a person and player than Titas for this scholarship."

Bera, a 2018 alumnus and the fourth student-athlete in program history to earn All-North Coast Athletic Conference honors each season during his career, was voted the NCAC Player of the Year as a junior. He's third all-time in program history in wins at No. 1 singles (53), sixth in overall singles wins (70), and seventh in combined wins (121). He's one of 10 players in program history with 100 or more combined wins.

The biochemistry and molecular biology alumnus, who graduated with a 3.62 GPA, spent two summers working at the National Cancer Institute and was a two-time recipient of the institute's Cancer Research Training Award. On campus, Bera served as president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee for the 2017-18 academic year and was heavily involved with the Wooster Community Care Network as a health coach.

Bera was a College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Google Cloud Academic All-District® honoree as a senior, earned the athletic department's David A. Guldin Award, and was a member of Beta Beta Beta.

Since graduating from Wooster, Bera's worked as a research technologist at the Cleveland Clinic, and later at Northwestern University when the laboratory transitioned its operations to Chicago. There, he was in charge of consenting cancer patients with various malignancies to the research protocol. Additionally, he acquired and processed tissue samples for development into patient avatar models. The models "allowed our group to conduct studies that assist in the discovery of genomic predictors to radiation resistance and sensitivity, and deliver personalized therapeutic care," per Bera.

With Bera playing a key leadership role in the efforts, the lab increased the diversity of its patient avatar library, and the 10,000 Avatar Project was started by the group in the last quarter. According to Bera, it's the "largest patient-derived xenograft (PDX) mouse experiment conducted to date by any group, and this work will correlate genetic and other omic alterations with the likelihood of response to radiotherapy and matched recurrent tumors in patients.

Due to Bera's work as a research technologist, he needed to reapply for the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship this spring, as the original timeframe to utilize the funds from 2018 lapsed.

NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships are awarded annually to up to 126 student-athletes, who are selected by a committee that screens candidates whom maintain at least a 3.2 GPA, have performed and behaved with distinction on and off the playing field, and intend to continue their academic work beyond the baccalaureate degree.

Of note, Wooster was one of 26 institutions with multiple selections this year. Wooster's 19 recipients span 12 of the College's 23 varsity athletic teams.