Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared in a news update by the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin….
A UT Austin undergraduate’s research could help change the way doctors diagnose diseases with known protein biomarkers like multiple sclerosis and leukemia.
Courtney Koepke, a Plan II and biomedical engineering junior, is an undergraduate research assistant at UT Austin’s Laboratory of Biomaterials, Drug Delivery and Bionanotechnology.
“As a freshman entering college, I didn’t know much about research or understand the important role it plays in the continual advancement of society,” Koepke says.
That changed when Nicholas Peppas, a biomedical engineering researcher at UT Austin, was a guest lecturer in one of Koepke’s classes. Intrigued by his presentation, Koepke looked into the research he and his lab were doing.
UT Plan II student Courney Koepke--"the rest, as they say, is history."
“As I read some of the recent publications from the lab, I realized I wanted to be a part of the research that was being conducted and a part of the group of individuals truly aspiring to change the world,” she says. “The rest, as they say, is history.”
Koepke began working in Peppas’ lab at the beginning of her sophomore year. The experience has not only served as a vehicle for intellectual discovery, but also self-discovery.
“The motivating idea behind research is the discovery of new knowledge, which drives innovation and improvement in all areas of society,” Koepke says. “Being a part of that societal improvement and something bigger than oneself is something every undergraduate student can benefit from. Furthermore, research can allow undergraduates to uncover their strengths and weaknesses as well as likes and dislikes at an early age.”
The research Koepke is conducting is focused on molecularly imprinted polymers, or plastic antibodies, which are created in a lab to mimic naturally occurring antibodies.
“My research focuses on plastic antibodies as a recognition element for disease because over time naturally occurring antibodies become unstable and useless for recognition,” she says. “The goal of my research is to create a diagnostic tool to recognize protein biomarkers for disease. Using plastic antibodies as the recognition element in a diagnostic tool would allow for quicker and easier diagnosis of diseases such as multiple sclerosis, meningitis and leukemia.”
The liberal arts component to Koepke’s education has made a big impact on the way she approaches her work. As a Plan II student, she’s worked closely with students from a variety of backgrounds, who have exposed her to diverse opinions that challenge and expand her worldview.
“Taking classes such as world literature and philosophy has helped me mature intellectually in ways my science and engineering classes never could have,” Koepke says. “Liberal arts classes have forced me to question society and how it’s structured, as well as humanity and what our duty to it is as individuals.”
Koepke serves as president of Texas Engineering World Health, an organization that aims to create more equitable global health through innovation in medical technology.
Last year, Koepke and her teammates designed an app called Audiometry Made Easy, which provides a free audiometry test to assess hearing loss. It’s an important resource, especially in developing countries where a normal audiometer is an expensive and widely unavailable tool. The app is currently available in the Google Play store, and has received feedback from people using it around the world.
Koepke is also an active member in Women in Biomedical Engineering and she recently joined Texas 4000, through which she will bike from Austin to Anchorage in the summer of 2016 to raise money and awareness for cancer research.
In his Rhodes Scholar interview, Robert Fisher was asked to talk about something he had seen that was strikingly beautiful. The honors student from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga knew at once what he wanted to say:
“Looking out from Sunset Rock, on Lookout Mountain in Tennessee…Chattanooga is nestled between two mountains and a river runs through the city. The real beauty in that view comes from knowing the place: I could see my university downtown, the river, even the highway, I could see where it goes. I could see it all.”
Robert Fisher shaking hands with President Obama
One reason that Robert could “see it all” as such a young man is that as a Brock Scholar at UT Chattanooga he was challenged “to be an advocate, to become a civic leader, to tackle some really tough issues in the college and in the community.” In the process, Robert evolved, as he puts it, to a point where the relationship between the university and the city of Chattanooga became his central focus.
Much of that evolution came from honors coursework and from the mentoring hand of a Brock Scholars alumnus, Demarcus Pegues, now a doctoral student at Columbia University. Demarcus had already worked as an intern for two summers at the Institute for Responsible Citizenship in Washington, DC. Debbie Bell, now associate director of the honors college, helped Robert connect with Demarcus, and Robert then gained acceptance into the program and interned for two summers in Washington, where he met President Obama.
“The Brock Scholars program (now a four-year honors track incorporated into the new Honors College) was really good at encouraging us to find out who we are from the time we arrived,” Robert said. “They were so great in putting me in touch with mentors.”
The Brock Scholars Program/ Honors College is both challenging and still small enough that mentoring is readily at hand. The College now has 140 students, but with a new dean brought on board in 2013, Dr. Linda Frost, both staff and facilities will expand sufficiently to accommodate about 600 students. Aside from the mentoring, the College has also taken on a role that fits perfectly with Robert’s interests: leveraging the relationship of the university and the city of Chattanooga to the benefit of both.
The College sponsored the first-ever TEDx event last October–and Robert was one of two student speakers, discussing ways to overcome some of the inequities that still exist in the rapidly-growing (and quickly improving) city.
The College has also adopted a rigorous curriculum and completion requirement, effective for Fall 2015. Brock Scholars will have to complete at least 31 honors credits; the average completion requirement for the 50 national university honors programs covered in our recent Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs was less demanding–28 credits.
The profile of the Honors College students is also competitive with those at national university honors programs. The mean ACT for the Honors College is 30.7, virtually the same as for the 50 national universities.
Financial aid is also especially generous for Brock Scholars. Dean Frost says that “in addition to their separately funded university merit scholarship and their Tennessee Hope scholarship, 30-35 Brock Scholars have been awarded an additional $16,000 scholarship ($4,000 per year) for some time.” Honors housing is also available–apartment-style, air-conditioned, with convenient dining and laundry facilities.
Cost, location, and challenging classes were what brought Robert to UTC from his home in Clarksville, TN, and to the Brock Scholars Program. “I wanted to go to a university that would prepare me for graduate school,” he says, and now he certainly has his wish.
“Robert is one of the most articulate, intelligent, thoughtful, balanced, mature, and charismatic students with whom I have ever worked,” says Dean Frost. “It is the combination of all these talents that has attracted so many leading authorities to Robert, people such as the Chancellor of our own campus, the mayor of Chattanooga, the President of the University of Tennessee system, and even the governor of the state.
“All of these figures have recognized the amazing presence and intellect that characterize Robert and have sought out his leadership in their own initiatives as a result. Only the fourth two-term Student Government President in UTC history, Robert is not just a natural leader; he is an informed, cautious, and brave one. He has also been my colleague since I stepped foot in Chattanooga, sharing and developing ideas with me about the founding of our Honors College. And well he should because it was the Brock Scholars Program, our long-standing four-year honors program, that brought Robert to our campus and that has afforded him many of the experiences that helped him develop his leadership abilities and style.”
His experiences in Washington, one result of honors mentoring, gave strong focus to Robert’s interest in public service. Now as a senior at UTC, Robert’s passion is finding ways to strengthen what he sees as the mutually beneficial relationship between the university and the city of Chattanooga. Robert has served as co-chair of the Downtown Task-force for Mayor Andy Berke’s Chattanooga Forward Initiative, working to bring more energy, dynamism, and inclusiveness to downtown Chattanooga.
He is already serving on the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, University of Tennessee Advocacy Council, University of Tennessee Alumni Association Board of Governors, University of Tennessee President’s Budget Advisory Group, and Academic Affairs and Student Success Committee of the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees.
The former star debater in high school says his debate coach also made a great contribution to his successes in college and in the competition for prestigious scholarships. As Dean Frost noted, Robert is exceptionally articulate, but he has now learned along the way that in both the honors classroom and in the sometimes contentious world of local and university governance, it is not sufficient to be able to take one side or another of an issue and argue it effectively, regardless of where one’s personal values lie, because government in action is about reconciling values that can be extremely personal.
In the much more real world of city and university politics, almost everyone has strong convictions; listening, thinking and reasoning through divisive issues, respecting other views while advocating for your own–all of these skills are much more important and harder to master than simply declaiming on this or that side of a single issue.
In debate, Robert says, he could separate his inner person and beliefs from the position he was assigned to argue in competition. Sometimes he might agree, or partially agree, or even completely disagree with the argument he had crafted and presented for the competitions.
But in honors humanities classes, Robert learned not only “how to state an answer but how to reason your way through to find the answer, and how to deal with disagreement in a civil manner.”
Honors humanities seminars were “foundational” for him and other students because of the critical learning skills they developed, but the courses also taught honors students how to “become better persons” through sharing honest insights, discovering similarities and differences, and often developing more subtle or comprehensive views.
“That’s healthy because it invites us to have a more thoughtful approach to understanding something, and to challenge ourselves, to evolve—the beauty of my experience in college has been to use all that I’ve learned–my government leadership, the academics, my personal development–the confluence of the personal, the academic, and the professional.”
If Robert’s accomplishments and interests make him sound like an ideal candidate for a Truman Scholarship, which is awarded to outstanding juniors who plan to make a contribution through public service, well…Robert did win a Truman Scholarship in 2014, and he was a Presidential Fellow in 2013-2014. “I have four years to begin using the Truman Scholarship,” he said, “and so now I can go on to Oxford [as a Rhodes Scholar] and get a master’s degree first.” At Oxford, he plans to study comparative social policy. Later, he might consider a doctoral program at UCLA, Columbia, or perhaps someplace else.
And…if Robert’s accomplishments also sound like those of a young man who might seek elective office, then the answer is yes. “I certainly have an interest in running for public office, and I like to see the changes up close as they happen–and so local government is really interesting.”
But it’s easy to see Robert leading at a higher level. The photograph of the new Rhodes Scholar shaking hands with the President brings to mind another photo taken more than fifty years ago: the future Rhodes Scholar Bill Clinton shaking hands with President John F. Kennedy.
With continued support from both parents, who “from kindergarten on, had very high expectations for both my sister and me,” and with the lessons already learned at UTC, Robert Fisher’s vision will continue to grow during his time at Oxford. The view from that storied university is as expansive as it gets, especially for someone who has been to Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and heard freedom ring loud and clear.
We measure eight characteristics of the 50 honors programs we recently reviewed, but two of those characteristics–the number of honors courses and the size of honors classes–may be the most important for most parents and prospective students.
In our review, we use a scale of 2 to 5 “mortarboards” to rate the eight characteristics: (1) honors completion requirements; (2)the range and type of honors classes; (3) the average enrollment in honors class sections; (4) honors graduation rates; (5) ratio of honors students to honors staff; (6) honors housing; (7) prestigious awards earned by students; and (8) the availability of priority registration for classes.
In this post, we will focus on numbers 2 and 3 above, bearing in mind that a rating of 5 mortarboards is the highest possible rating, while a rating of 4.5 mortarboards is also outstanding.
When it comes to the highest achievement in both the range and type of honors classes and the availability of small honors classes, only one honors college received the highest rating possible–5 mortarboards–in both categories. With an impressive range of honors interdisciplinary seminars to go along with almost 70 department honors courses, the University of Mississippi’s Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College certainly has a lot of honors courses to choose from, along with an average honors class size of fewer than 15 students per section.
Here are nine other honors colleges and programs that have at least a 4.5 rating in both the range and type of courses offered and the average size of honors classes. Note: an average class size rating of 5.0 means the average class size is 15 students or fewer, and a 4.5 rating means that the average honors class size is 20 students or fewer.
Alabama Honors College: range and type of honors courses=5.0; class size=4.5
Arizona State Barrett Honors College: range and type of honors courses=5.0; class size=4.5
Indiana Hutton Honors College: range and type of honors courses=5.0; class size=4.5
Mississippi SMBHC: range and type of honors courses=5.0; class size=5.0
Penn State Schreyer Honors College: range and type of honors courses=5.0; average class size=4.5
South Carolina Honors College: range and type of honors courses=5.0; average class size=4.5
Temple University Honors Program: range and type of honors courses=5.0; average class size=4.5
UCLA Honors Program: range and type of honors courses=5.0; average class size=4.5
Colorado State Honors Program: range and type of honors courses=4.5; average class size=4.5
Texas Tech Honors College: range and type of honors courses=4.5; average class size=4.5
It is no coincidence that only one of the programs listed above has an overall honors rating (all 8 categories) of less than 4.0, and most have an overall rating of 4.5 or 5.0.
Editor’s Note: This post is excerpted from Alcalde, the alumni magazine of the University of Texas at Austin.
The late T.W. “Tom” Whaley, Ph.D. ’68, who quietly served his country in the CIA during the Cold War, surprised UT leaders this year with a $35 million bequest to create engineering scholarships at the Cockrell School of Engineering.
In 2014-15, the new endowment’s first year, 34 students from across Texas will receive Whaley Scholarships and pursue studies in all seven engineering departments at the Cockrell School.
“Dr. Whaley’s parents instilled in him the value of an education, and he wanted young Texans to have the same opportunities to learn and contribute to their state and nation,” said Whaley’s attorney and friend David Anderson, the executor of his estate. “I believe he made this extraordinary gift to change these students’ lives.”
The T.W. Whaley, Jr. Friends of Alec Endowed Scholarship is now one of the largest endowments for undergraduate and graduate financial aid at the Cockrell School. The endowment, projected to provide $1.6 million in annual merit scholarships and fellowships, increases the school’s total scholarship and fellowship funding by 25 percent.
Incoming freshman Marshall Tekell is from Whaley’s hometown of Waco. “Receiving the Whaley Scholarship changed my life in a radical way,” said Tekell, who plans to major in chemical engineering. “Not only does it remove an enormous burden from my family, it allows me to envision my education far into the future. Dr. Whaley gave me the freedom to follow his example.”
He earned his doctorate in electrical engineering from UT Austin where he studied signal strength of electromagnetic waves, and he was recruited by the CIA after graduation because of his expertise in antenna technology. Later, he returned to Texas to help manage his family’s farm, which he helped expand to 4,000 acres. Whaley’s wealth originated from oil and gas royalties, and it grew as he accumulated and oversaw a portfolio of stocks and bonds.
Editor’s note: The following article by Dorothy Guerrero appeared in Alcalde, the alumni magazine of UT Austin….
Maybe you’ve had this nightmare: Dressed in a suit and tie, you sit at a table across from two geniuses who are exalted in their field. You’re in a room on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Mass., and the walls are made of glass, so everyone in the hallway can see you sweat. There’s a big stack of paper in the middle of the table and a couple of pens on either side to use if you need to draw a schematic to explain a concept. There is no way to cram for this oral exam because you are not being tested on something you have learned—but on everything you have ever learned.
No? Well it actually happened last March to Ashvin Bashyam, BS ’14, who managed to pass the daunting interview during his senior year at UT and win the Hertz fellowship for graduate education in the applied physical, biological, and engineering sciences. It’s a five-year award, valued at $250,000. He was one of only 15 students in the nation selected for the fellowship and the university’s fourth since 2011.
Bashyam was a researcher in UT’s Ultrasound Imaging and Therapeutics Research Laboratory, where he focused on improving cancer detection through advanced medical imaging. Geoffrey Luke, PhD ’13, who mentored Bashyam in the lab, says he knew he was special right away.
“Any time you are describing something to him,” Luke says, “he’s usually one step ahead. A student like Ashvin doesn’t come around very often.”
The goal of the Hertz interview is for the candidate to prove that he can think creatively and apply what he knows on the fly to unsolved problems. A panel of past winners asks open-ended, hypothetical questions. Bashyam remembers being stressed out, but for the most part he felt he was doing well—until one question tripped him up.
“Imagine we are in the future of health care,” said one of his interrogators. “Fifteen to 20 years from now, and every disease is managed except for very early stage cancers. Those are still unstoppable until we can see them. So come up with a way for a hospital to screen every patient walking in … Go.”
Bashyam’s first attempt at an answer had something to do with using X-ray and MRI, but the panel interrupted him right away and told him to think more ambitiously.
“I started off recalling what I’d done in lab where we learn how cancer at its somewhat early stages starts to recruit blood vessels and raises the overall temperature in that area,” Bashyam says. “It’s a process called angiogenesis.”
So he threw out a proposal for a kind of imaging technique that looks for increased blood vessel density, or maybe changes in hemoglobin concentration.
“Nope,” they said, cutting him off again, “We’re talking about earlier.”
That’s when Bashyam had to dig deeper and cast his thoughts wider than he had ever done before. He found himself talking about the immune system, which he says he knows very little about. He talked about inflammation, T-cells, and lymphocytes and then he said if we could somehow track the immune cells’ activity level, we would see it increase in response to cancer.
“I guess I must have said something intelligent,” he remembers, though still with a puzzled look on his face, “because eventually they nodded and we moved on.”
A few weeks after the interview, Bashyam got word that he’d won not just the Hertz, but also the National Science Foundation fellowship and the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate fellowship.
“The Hertz alone is an amazing accomplishment for any individual and their school,” Luke says, “but then to get the other two as well, which are also very competitive … it’s a testament to Ashvin and how well he’s able to perform under pressure.”
This fall, Bashyam will return to the site of his interview to study medical engineering and medical physics as part of the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. He’s looking forward to being in the middle of such a vibrant health-technology environment, where venture capital firms are supporting major innovations coming out of the program.
One day, he hopes to develop an implantable device that circulates around the body and looks for tumor cells. Anyone with any kind of cancer or risk factors could have one, and that, Bashyam says, would completely change the game.
Editor’s note: This is another in our series featuring public university honors students who won prestigious Goldwater scholarships in 2014. This post comes from the UConn Honors Program….
Three UConn honors students have each won a 2014 national Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for Excellence in Education.
The scholarships, honoring Sen. Barry Goldwater, are designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. The scholarships cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to $7,500 per year. Both sophomores and juniors are eligible to apply.
Students are nominated for the award by UConn’s Office of National Scholarships, which supports them through the application process.
Michael Cantara ’16 (ENG) is an honors student from Barrington, R.I. He is a recipient of the Universities Space Research Association Education Scholarship, and a Learning Mentorship Scholarship through the School of Engineering. As a sophomore recipient of the Goldwater Scholarship, he will receive two years of funding.
Cantara has a passion for understanding the universe, and is currently conducting research in particle physics with Peter Schweitzer, assistant professor of physics, calculating “Q-balls, with a focus on their d1 term.” He is also working on a project with professor of physics William Stwalley and his team in the ultracold molecules laboratory.
Although it is early in his research career, Cantara has already participated in a summer research experience at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, R.I., and because of this experience now has a Department of Defense security clearance.
Cantara is also an active member of the Society of Physics Students and UConn’s Physics Club, and has spent numerous hours doing community service. A musician, he plays both the electric and acoustic guitar and has taught others how to play. He also enjoys tennis, golf, basketball, cycling, and skiing.
Peter J. Larson Jr. ’15 (CANR), an honors student from New Canaan, Conn., aspires to earn an MD/Ph.D. and become an innovator in the world of virology, viral vectors, or gene therapy. He is currently working in the lab of Paulo Verardi, assistant professor of pathobiology, studying methods to produce recombinant vaccinia viruses. He has presented two posters on his research and is collecting more data for publication.
He has also been a research associate for the Tobacco Cessation Program at St. Vincent’s hospital in Bridgeport, Conn., and conducted field research on water quality in local rivers while still in high school. When he’s home, he is an active firefighter and EMT for the Vista Fire Department in Lewisboro, N.Y. (which is adjacent to New Canaan), and was named Rookie of the Year in 2011.
On campus, he is also busy outside of the lab, as a member of the UConn Ballroom Dance Team, and within the Honors Program, as a student worker and a mentor with the PATH Honors Mentoring Program, among other activities. He has received numerous awards, including the James Dewitt Scholarship, the William H. Allen Scholarship, and an Academic Excellence Scholarship. In 2012, the UConn Residence Hall Association named him President of the Year by for his work on the Buckley-Shippee-Sylvie Area Council.
Patrick J. Lenehan ’15 (CLAS), an honors student from Cheshire, Conn., is currently conducting research with Barbara Mellone, assistant professor of molecular and cell biology, on proteins and the formation of centromeres and kinetochores in Drosophila.
He has also worked in the lab of Rajeswari Kasi, associate professor of chemistry, investigating the use of high-molecular weight poly-acrylic acid to stabilize enzymes, and is contributing to a publication with Dr. Melanie Collins, whom he shadowed in the Pulmonary Department at Central Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, on the treatment of pediatric patients with cystic fibrosis. He was previously a research assistant for Dr. Alireza Shamshirsaz in the Department of Maternal and Fetal Medicine at UConn Health, where he contributed to several publications on obstetrics.
Ultimately, Lenehan plans to earn an MD/Ph.D., become a research oncologist, and advance treatments of the disease. At UConn, his stellar academic record has earned him recognition as a Babbidge Scholar. He is also the recipient of the Presidential Scholars Award Scholarship and the United Technologies Corporation Academic Scholarship.
In addition to his demanding course load and research schedule, Lenehan is a member of UConn’s NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Team.
Editor’s Note: This is the latest in our continuing series of profiles featuring students from public university honors programs who won Goldwater Scholarships in 2014. The following information is from the University of Kentucky.
The University of Kentucky Office of External Scholarships announces Samuel Saarinen, of Shelbyville, Ky., has been awarded the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship worth up to $7,500 per year. Saarinen is one of 283 students nationwide awarded the Goldwater Scholarship this year. This year’s Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,166 mathematics, science and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide.
Saarinen plans to use the Goldwater Scholarship to fund studies at the graduate program of his choice.
The son of Anne and Tim Saarinen, Saarinen is currently pursuing computer science, mathematics and physics majors. He has been active in research since an early age working with Western Kentucky University professors Claus Ernst and Uta Ziegler on mathematics research in high school.
A member of the UK Honors Program, Saarinen is currently participating in undergraduate research with Judy Goldsmith, professor of computer science at UK College of Engineering. Saarinen considers his research supervisors as also mentors who have had a major impact on his academic and personal growth. He also credits Paul Eakin, professor of mathematics, and Jerzy Jaromczyk, associate professor of computer science, as great influences on his studies.
Fellow winnerMatthew Fahrbach is a rising senior from Louisville KY with a 4.0 gpa, majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. He was awarded a Presidential Scholarship to attend UK. As a sophomore, Matthew was selected as a Chellgren Fellow and conducted research with Dr. Jerzy Jaromczyk on shortest k-radius sequences. He presented this research at the 2013 UK Showcase for Undergraduate Scholars.
For the summer of 2013, he was accepted by an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program at the University of Washington where he conducted research in enumerative combinatorics under the mentorship of Dr. Sara Billey. The research showed that each peak in a peak set is a root of the corresponding peak polynomial, and furthermore, if an odd difference exists between two peaks, then a subset of the peak polynomial’s integral roots.
Matthew was the Team Captain of the University of Kentucky Association of Computing Machinery Programming Team when they were named the top public school team in the Mid-Central North American region. He is also an active member of Alpha Phi Omega Service Fraternity and completes at least 20 hours of community service per semester, primarily at Peacemeal Community Gardens. Matthew will graduate from UK in May 2015 and plans to pursue a PhD in Computer Science. He hopes to research mathematical algorithms and teach as a professor at a university. He also wants to work closely with undergraduate students by mentoring research projects and coaching a competitive programming team.
Editor’s Note: This is another in a series of profiles of 2014 winners of Goldwater Scholarships who are students at public university honors colleges or programs.
Three Commonwealth Honors College students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have received scholarships for work in the natural sciences and engineering as part of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program. Another received an honorable mention.
According to Susan Krauss Whitbourne, a professor of psychology and Director of the Office of National Scholarship Advisement (ONSA) at the Commonwealth Honors College, “each participating campus can nominate up to four applicants, so we were particularly pleased that three of our UMass students won, and the fourth was recognized with Honorable Mention. This is a tribute to the great research being carried out by our faculty, and their dedication to advising and mentoring undergraduates in their labs.”Working with Professor Whitbourne is Dr. Howard Schultz, a Lecturer in the Honors College, who assisted in recruiting applicants and advising those who were nominated on their final applications.
The winners are Alyson Warr, a junior majoring in microbiology from Freetown, MA; Stefan (Marco) Eres, a junior chemistry major from Knoxville, TN; and Marianne Sleiman, a junior chemical engineering major from Greenville, R.I. John Manteiga, a junior from North Andover, MA, pursuing majors in microbiology and biochemistry and molecular biology received honorable mention.
The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by Congress in 1986 to honor Senator Barry Goldwater for his service as a soldier and statesman, including 30 years in the U.S. Senate.
Goldwater scholarships are intended to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. Each competing university nominated its top four students, who were then evaluated by the national Goldwater Scholarship selection committee. From a field of 1,166 mathematics, science and engineering students nominated by colleges and universities, 283 received scholarships and 247 received honorable mentions. The one- and two-year scholarships cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.
Alyson Warr has worked in the laboratory of microbiology professor Steven Sandler since 2012, and has studied cell division, recombination and repair in Escherchia coli bacteria. She is currently working on a project to identify genes that contribute to a novel cell division phenotype in response to stress conditions.
“With the age of antibiotics drawing to a close, the need for innovative drug targets and novel therapies to control bacterial growth is urgent,” said Warr. “I am committed to contributing to this development by elucidating the mechanistic details of cell division.”
Warr plans to pursue a Ph.D. in microbiology. After graduate school, she hopes to conduct research at a major university with a focus on developing novel drug therapies to control the spread of antibiotic resistant pathogens.
Marco Eres has worked with chemistry professor Dhandapani Venkataraman since 2011 studying organic photovoltaic cells and pursuing a new approach to fabricate semiconducting inks and methods to print photovoltaic cells. The lab is developing nanoscale components in the inks that will self-assemble into structures necessary for the production of solar cells.
Eres said, “I am motivated to pursue this project because it enables me to contribute to the shift in the chemical research community from the study of the relationship of atoms through strong covalent bonds to the study of the relationship of molecules through weaker, non-covalent attractions, a field known as supramolecular chemistry. I aim to use the knowledge I gain in this project to design new functional materials for applications in organic photovoltaics and sensing.”
Eres plans to pursue a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering, specializing in supramolecular chemistry. His career plan is to lead a materials science research team in academia or industry.
Marianne Sleiman works with chemical engineering professor Shelly Peyton to study methods for using biomaterial systems to quantify how cancer cells respond to drugs when they are placed in environments that mimic a natural in vivo environment. In particular, they are interested in determining the relationship between tumor stiffening and the efficacy of a variety of underperforming chemotherapeutics.
“I am motivated to continue this leading research by using my knowledge to find a novel method to facilitate therapeutics during the drug screening process,” said Sleiman. “This research will help identify how mechanical and chemical changes in the ECM affect tumor growth and drug resistance, which will improve therapeutic methods, thus furthering cancer drug research.”
After graduation Sleiman will pursue a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and hopes to lead a research team that will focus on understanding carcinomas and finding novel therapies to impede the development of tumors.
John Manteiga has worked with microbiology professor John Lopes since 2012 to study the proteins responsible for the regulation of gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast.
“Understanding how proteins work and interact with one another is an essential step on the path toward curing cancer and many other genetic diseases.” Manteiga intends to earn a Ph.D. and then pursue work in biotechnology, genetic diseases, or pharmaceuticals in an industrial research setting.
According to Susan Krauss Whitbourne, director of the Office of National Scholarship Advisement at Commonwealth Honors College, each nominee was required to submit an application, an essay describing academic and career plans, a research proposal, and three letters of reference.
Editor’s Note: The post below by Arizona State writer Sarah Auffret is another in our series on 2014 Goldwater scholars from public university honors programs….
Three outstanding Arizona State University juniors who already are doing sophisticated research have won Goldwater Scholarships, the nation’s premier awards for undergraduates studying science, math and engineering.
Working in the laboratories of ASU senior faculty and scientists, the students carry out research ranging from developing biosensors for early detection of infectious diseases to conducting microelectronics research at ASU’s Flexible Display Center.
Recipients are Ryan Muller of Phoenix, majoring in biochemistry and molecular/cellular biology; Brett Larsen of Chandler, majoring in electrical engineering and physics; and Jakob Hansen of Mesa, a mathematics and economics major. Each of the four will receive $7,500 a year for up to two years.
ASU students have won 55 Goldwater Scholarships in the last 21 years, placing ASU among the leading public universities.
Muller is a resourceful and motivated student who began doing research at ASU while still a student at North High School, and again the summer before his freshman year. Xiao Wang, assistant professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, remembers that even though Muller was initially the youngest member of the iGEM synthetic biology research team, others quickly began to rely on him.
“His ideas were fresh, innovative and motivating to the team,” says Wang. “In fact, the first day he volunteered in my lab, without any prior experience, he implemented a strategy to effectively screen for bacterial colonies that contained the correct transformed plasmid. The team began to rely on his resourcefulness.”
In subsequent years, Muller continued working on the team and was a key player in helping them develop a portable, low-cost biosensor system to detect pathogens in water supplies. They won a gold medal and a spot in the international championship event for one of the world’s premiere student engineering and science competitions.
Interested in expanding their work, Muller and others assembled a team of undergraduate researchers to seek additional funding. Last year, they were grand prize winners at the ASU Innovation Challenge and at the ASU Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative. Their fledgling company, Hydrogene Biotechnologies, may help cut down on water-borne diseases that can kill, such as acute childhood diarrhea.
Hansen, a graduate of Red Mountain High School, is a talented mathematician who has been a delight to his professors as someone who enjoys the formal beauty of mathematics, yet is committed to doing research into real problems that affect humans.
“Jakob is exceptionally talented at mathematics, and is one of relatively few undergraduates that I have taught at ASU who was equally enthusiastic about pure and applied mathematics,” says Jay Taylor, assistant professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistical Sciences. “He was always very keen to discuss the theory underpinning the techniques that I presented in class.
“For his project, he wrote a computer program to simulate a malaria outbreak in a small population and used this to investigate the conditions under which malaria will persist in small populations subject to seasonal variation in transmission intensity.”
Hansen participated in ASU’s Computational Science Training for Undergraduates last summer with Rosemary Renaut, professor of mathematics, who praised his mathematical sophistication to the Goldwater committee. He is continuing his research with Renault into more abstract problems.
Larsen, a graduate of Tri-City Christian Academy, received funding early in his career from the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative. Over the past two years, he has conducted research at ASU’s Flexible Display Center, developing ultra low-power circuits and applying advanced signal processing techniques to personnel detection along borders and in hostile territory.
Larsen says his interest in science was sparked by a Boy Scout leader, an electrical engineer who talked to him about subjects that enthralled him: objects traveling at the speed of light, the astonishing power of fusion and fission reactions, and theoretical designs for time machines and light sabers. Larsen was inspired to excel in science so he could push the boundaries of technology.
Called “a brilliant young man” by Antonia Papandreou-Suppappola, professor of electrical engineering, Larsen shares his love of science by mentoring a group of engineering freshmen and leading a science club for young children at the Child Crisis Center. In the future, he hopes to focus his work on developing mathematical models for defense applications.
“ASU’s success in the Goldwater competition is in large part due to the excellent opportunities our students have had to do advanced lab research with talented and committed faculty,” says Janet Burke, associate dean for national scholarship advisement in Barrett, the Honors College.
“It goes without saying that the drive and brilliance of the students themselves are both important. I have a top-notch Goldwater committee who do a superb job of selecting the students whose applications will bubble to the top of the pile.”
The latest Lumosity ranking of the smartest universities is based on more than 70,000 student results on a battery of tests designed to measure cognitive ability in the following areas: attention, flexibility, memory, problem solving, and speed. Students from more than 450 institutions participated.
Attention and memory scores correlate to a lesser extent than the other areas to SAT performance, but the other area scores correlate more closely with the crystallized math and verbal knowledge measured by the SAT. Universities had to have at least 50 student participants to qualify for consideration; therefore, small schools such as Caltech were not included. All of the top 14 schools were highly selective private institutions. The rankings vary considerably from the previous year’s rankings.
The top ten schools were Washington U; MIT; Princeton; Northwestern; Carnegie Mellon; Chicago; Rice; Harvard; Yale; and Dartmouth. The rankings include liberal arts colleges (Oberlin, Wheaton, Colgate, etc.)
Below are the 25 public universities whose students had the best overall performance on the cognitive tests, in rank order, with the overall ranking in parentheses.
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