Spotlight
Football Team Captain Receives Prestigious Phi Kappa Phi Fellowship
The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines, recently awarded a $8,500 Fellowship to Jacob Wood (‘23) to pursue dental school at the University of Utah this fall. Wood is the third Southern Virginia University student in four years to receive this prestigious award.
“My original plan was to be a medical doctor, but after my mission I started looking into it and realized it wasn’t quite what I wanted,” said Wood. “I have a couple of family friends that are dentists. As I talked to them and started shadowing them I felt like dentistry was a good combination of the stuff I liked—medicine and helping people in a more personalized way.”
From Gilbert, Arizona, Wood transferred from Brigham Young University to Southern Virginia University after his mission to continue his passion of playing football while also pursuing an undergraduate degree. Embodying the Division III core philosophy of being a student-athlete, Wood made President’s and Provost’s Lists several times, graduated with a 4.0 GPA, and served as the football team’s captain.
“I chose Southern Virginia because that gave me the ability to participate in and balance academics and sports,” said Wood. “Doing both, which are both very time-demanding, I got really good at figuring out how to balance my time, which has been a really important skill to learn.”
“I feel it’s going to translate really well into dental school,” Wood continued. “In your first semester you’re taking roughly 30 credit hours, so having the ability to manage your time is really important since they ask you during the interview process how you’ll manage the course load. My time at Southern Virginia doing both academics and sports has really helped prepare me.”
While a student, Wood participated in the university’s pre-health professional club and pickleball club and worked at an orthodontist office for a summer between semesters. He also shadowed and assisted dental students at local Remote Area Medical (RAM) clinics—volunteer opportunities facilitated by Professor of Chemistry Dr. Barbara Van Kuiken.
“I had Dr. V[an Kuiken] for every single semester that I was at Southern Virginia, and with Dr. [Roger] Johnson, I did my capstone and advanced biochem classes,” said Wood. “I feel like Dr. V really helped prepare me for the dental admissions test because it was very chemistry heavy. I did really, really well on those parts, and it was definitely because of her classes.”
“Dr. Johnson gave me some good talking points for the interviews,” continued Wood. “His advanced biochem class was a good representation of what most medical school or dental school classes are going to look like since he has experience teaching at a medical school. I felt like it was really helpful preparing me for the future. He and Dr. V both wrote me letters of recommendation for the Phi Kappa Phi fellowship.”
Wood served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Adriatic North Mission from 2019–21. He married Mackenzie Porter in May 2024, and will start his dental program at the University of Utah in August.