National Science Foundation Graduate Research Grants 2014: Public University Leaders

With the national interest so focused on developing talent in the STEM disciplines and the “hard” social sciences (e.g., economics, behavioral sciences), we have been tracking the number of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Grants awarded to universities during the last four years.

Public university leaders in NSF grants are listed below.

NSF graduate research grants are among the most prestigious and valuable awards given to outstanding students.  They also indicate the quality of faculty and facilities and the degree of attention and mentoring that may be available to high-achieving undergraduate researchers.

“Fellows share in the prestige and opportunities that become available when they are selected.  Fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $32,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees, opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.

“NSF Fellows are anticipated to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering. These individuals are crucial to maintaining and advancing the nation’s technological infrastructure and national security as well as contributing to the economic well-being of society at large.”

Public University leaders in NSF grants, 2014:

UC Berkeley–60

Maryland–34

UCLA–29

UC San Diego–29

Florida–28

Illinois–27

Washington–26

UT Austin–24

Michigan–23

Georgia Tech–19

NC State–17

North Carolina–17

Minnesota–16

Rutgers–16

Wisconsin–16

Virginia–15

Arizona–13

Colorado–13

Indiana–13

Nebraska–13

Ohio State–13

Penn State–13

Texas A&M–13

Clemson–12

Missouri–12

Pitt–12

Michigan State–11

Arizona State–10

Arkansas–9

Massachusetts–9

South Carolina–9

UC Irvine–9

UC Santa Barbara–9

 

Goldwater Scholars 2014: Iowa State, Purdue, UW Madison Lead Banner Year for Public Universities

Each year, we provide an update of Goldwater scholarships won by public university students, and 2014 was a banner year: 149 of the 283 scholarships awarded this year went to outstanding scholars from 84 public universities.

We provide this update because Goldwater scholars are all still undergraduates, and their selection is an indication of the undergraduate research opportunities at their universities.

Iowa State, Purdue, and UW Madison led all public institutions with four Goldwater scholars each.  Another sixteen public universities had three scholars: Arizona State, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts Amherst, Montana State, New Hampshire, NC State, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Rutgers, South Florida, Western Kentucky, and West Virginia.  Since 2008, Western Kentucky students have won 18 Goldwater scholarships.

“The 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. One hundred seventy-two of the Scholars are men, 111 are women, and virtually all intend to obtain a Ph.D. as their degree objective. Twenty-two Scholars are mathematics majors, 191 are science and related majors, 63 are majoring in engineering, and 7 are computer science majors. Many of the Scholars have dual majors in a variety of mathematics, science, engineering, and computer disciplines.

“The one and two year scholarships will cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.

“Goldwater Scholars have very impressive academic qualifications that have garnered the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs. Recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 80 Rhodes Scholarships, 117 Marshall Awards, 112 Churchill Scholarships, and numerous other distinguished fellowships such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships.”

Former Missouri Honors Researcher Wins Gates Cambridge Scholarship

Editor’s Note: The story below is from the University of Missouri news service.
Shakked Halperin

At the age of 18, Shakked Halperin spent a year volunteering with Ethiopian children teaching high school math, English, percussion and art. Through that experience he developed a focus on improving the lives of others. Next fall, he will take that focus to the University of Cambridge after being named a recipient of the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship.


Halperin, who graduated from the University of Missouri in December with a degree in biological engineering, is one of 40 recipients of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. He will pursue a Masters of Philosophy in Biological Sciences.It was during his time volunteering with the Ethiopian children that Halperin realized he wanted to make a difference. He began a pursuit for safe global water supplies while working on the reconstruction of a failing wastewater treatment system in Honduras. There, he led a group of engineering students through the assessment, design and implementation of the reconstruction of the failed treatment plant.

He has already planned a project with a professor in Cambridge’s department of pathology that will expose him to all aspects of developing an application of synthetic biology, including theoretical idea conception, wet lab work, field testing, regulatory compliance and implementation.

“The project is in perfect alignment with my pursuit to secure global water supplies,” Halperin says. “I hope to create a sensor using synthetic biology that can mitigate arsenic poisoning by identifying safe drinking water supplies in developing countries.”

His undergraduate research work at MU included a supervised independent study program and participating in the Honors Undergraduate Research Program.

“Researching biological engineering as an undergraduate gave me an appreciation for the mechanisms that sustained living systems for billions of years at a level of complexity unparalleled by human innovation,” Halperin says.

He spent the summer of 2012 at the University of California-Berkeley where he conducted research through a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and last summer he participated in a research project through an REU at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

“Every so often, we are fortunate to meet exceptional students who perform beyond our expectations and Shakked is one such student,” says Shelia Grant, a professor of biological engineering who was Halperin’s faculty mentor at MU. “As an undergraduate student, Shakked independently performed graduate-level research. He was not hesitant about trying new experiments or learning new techniques.”

Halperin applied for the Gates Cambridge Scholarship because of its unique focus on building a community of future leaders committed to improving lives of others.

“The opportunity of this scholarship lies in the gathering of so many other passionate young leaders and so the responsibility that it brings is to use that opportunity to its full potential – that means forming bonds, discussions and collaborations with others in the community,” he says.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship is one of the world’s most celebrated honors for post-baccalaureate study. The highly-competitive scholarships are full-cost awards given to applicants outside the United Kingdom to pursue a full-time postgraduate degree in any subject available at the University of Cambridge.

This marks the second-consecutive year that a Mizzou alumnus has been awarded the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Lindsey Murray, BS’ 03, began her studies at Cambridge in the fall after earning the scholarship last year.

 

Half of Churchill Scholars 2014-2015 Are from Public Universities

Below is a list of Churchill Scholars for 2014-2015, each the recipient of a one-year grant worth approximately $60,000 to study at the University of Cambridge.  Three of the new scholars have also won Goldwater awards as undergraduates, and at least four are present or former honors program students.

Public university winners are from Georgia Tech, Rutgers, Arizona, UMass Amherst, UNC Chapel Hill, Pitt, and Wisconsin.

Georgia Tech alumna Alisha Kasam is also a Fulbright Scholar.  David Kolchmeyer of Rutgers earned a Goldwater Scholarship as a junior and worked at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

An honors college senior at the University of Arizona, Daniel Fried was also a 2013 Goldwater Scholar.  He is a triple major in computer science, math, and information science technology.  Morgan Opie, an honors senior in the Commonwealth Honors College at UMass Amherst, will pursue a master’s in math through Part III of the Mathematical Tripos, the oldest and most famous mathematical exam in the world.

Surojit Biswas, a student in the Honors Carolina program at UNC Chapel Hill and a Beckman Scholar, won a Goldwater award in 2012.  A triple major at Pitt and a student in the honors college, David Palm is currently working toward a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering as well as bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and the history and philosophy of science. Joshua Shutter of UW Madison is a physical chemist who spent 10 weeks working at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, CA.

Christopher Finch

Amherst College

Plant Sciences

Alisha Kasam

Georgia Institute of Technology

Engineering

Levent Alpoge

Harvard University

Pure Mathematics

Malinda McPherson

Johns Hopkins University

Music

Gabriella Heller

Pomona College

Chemistry

Katherine Pogrebniak

Princeton University

Computational Biology

David Kolchmeyer

Rutgers University

Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

Daniel Fried

University of Arizona

Computer Laboratory

Morgan Opie

University of Massachusetts/Amherst

Pure Mathematics

Surojit Biswas

University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill

Sainsbury Laboratory

Sarah Foster

University of Pennsylvania

Physiology, Development & Neuroscience

David Palm

University of Pittsburgh

Chemistry

Joshua Shutter

University of Wisconsin/Madison

Chemistry

Jared Hallett

Williams College

Pure Mathematics

PSAT National Merit Scholar Qualifying Scores for 2020, by State

Update December 10, 2019. Note: Students who received their PSAT results in December 2018 are the NMS Class of 2020Their qualifying selection index scores are listed below, per the Compassprep website. For students who took the test in October 2019 (NMS Class of 2021), selection index scores will not be available until September 2020.

The selection index score is the sum of your three PSAT scores, maximum of 228. The first score listed is for 2020; the second was the score required for the class of 2019; and the third is the score for the class of 2018.

Alabama 216, 216, 216
Alaska 213, 215, 217
Arizona 219, 220, 220
Arkansas 214, 214, 215
California 222, 223, 222
Colorado 220, 221, 220
Connecticut 221, 222, 221
Delaware 220, 222, 221
Dist Columbia 223, 223, 223
Florida 219, 219, 219
Georgia 220, 220, 220
Hawaii 219, 220, 220
Idaho 215, 214, 216
Illinois 221, 221, 221
Indiana 218, 219, 219
Iowa 215, 216, 216
Kansas 218, 218, 219
Kentucky 217, 218, 217
Louisiana 215, 217, 216
Maine 215, 217, 215
Maryland 222, 223, 222
Massachusetts 223, 223, 222
Michigan 219, 219, 219
Minnesota 219, 220, 220
Mississippi 214, 215, 213
Missouri 217, 217, 217
Montana 214, 214, 214
Nebraska 216, 216, 215
Nevada 218, 218, 217
New Hampshire 218, 219, 217
New Jersey 223, 223, 223
New Mexico 213, 215, 215
New York 221, 221, 221
North Carolina 219, 220, 219
North Dakota 212, 212, 211
Ohio 218, 219, 219
Oklahoma 214, 216
Oregon 220, 221, 220
Pennsylvania 220, 220, 220
Rhode Island 218, 220, 216
South Carolina 215, 216, 217
South Dakota 214, 215, 215
Tennessee 219, 219, 218
Texas 221, 221, 221
Utah 215, 215, 216
Vermont 216, 216, 217
Virginia 222, 222, 222
Washington 221, 222, 222
West Virginia 212, 212, 211
Wisconsin 216, 216, 217
Wyoming 212, 212, 213
Commended 212, 211, 209
Territories 212, 211, 209
International 223, 223, 223

To qualify for a National Merit Scholarship, the PSAT must be taken in the student’s junior year of high school. Many parents may not be aware that there is no single nationwide score on the PSAT that will qualify a student to become a NMS semifinalist, a critical preliminary step on the way to becoming a finalist and then perhaps a merit scholar.

Students are classified according to the state in which they attend high school, not the state of actual residence.

For more information about confirmation scores, please see PSAT Scoring and NMS (for a detailed explanation of scoring); The National Merit Journey: What You Need to Know, Part One; and The National Merit Journey Part Two: The Parent’s Role.

(See also Best Major Universities for National Merit Scholarship Funding and Merit Aid: Publics that Fund at least 50% of Tuition and Fees.)

Semifinalists emerge from the top 3-4% of students (50,000 or so) taking the test, by virtue of the PSAT score alone.  The top 3-4% of students earn “commended” status, and there is a national uniform score for commended students=209 for 2017.  (See below for SAT equivalent.) Semifinalists, on the other hand, account for fewer than 1% of all students, or about 16,000 nationwide.

From these students, the merit scholar foundation, using state allocation levels, selects about 15,000 to become finalists; and from this group, about 9,000 are actually selected as merit scholars, based on both PSAT and SAT scores and a letter of recommendation from the high school principal.  Therefore, many students who meet the semifinalist thresholds listed below do not go on to become finalists or merit scholars (two different things, though for some schools being a finalist is sufficient to earn support).  We speculate that meaningful improvement on the SAT, taken in the spring of the junior year, relative to the PSAT score from the preceding October, may help in identifying students who go beyond finalist status and become merit scholars.

Each state has its own threshold PSAT score, which is the baseline for students to be considered as semifinalists in a given state.  The scores vary widely for the NMS classof 2020, from 2012 in West Virginia to 223 in New Jersey.

Marshall Scholars 2014: Public University Honors Students Win 8 Awards

Eleven of the 34 Marshall Scholars for 2014 are from public universities.  The Marshall Scholarship is one of the most prestigious in the world, providing full funding for two years of study at major universities in the United Kingdom.  At least eight of the 11 winners from state universities are enrolled in honors colleges or programs.  The most recent list is below:

Shama Ams – Saint John’s University
School of Oriental and African Studies

John ‘Russell’ Beaumont – University of Texas Austin, Plan II Honors/Architecture
University of Manchester

Alyssa Bilinski – Yale University
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Alexander Brammer – United States Military Academy
University of Oxford

Andrew Bulovsky – University of Wisconsin –Madison
London School of Economics and Political Science

Rhaina Cohen – Northwestern University
University of Oxford

Tantum Collins -Yale University
University of Oxford

Patrick Donnan – Auburn University, Honors College, Physics/Music
University of Oxford

Natalia Emanuel – Yale University
University of Oxford

Mailyn Fidler – Stanford University
University of Oxford

Chelsea Glenn – Northwestern University
University of Oxford

Bradford Hackert – United States Air Force Academy
King’s College London

Erin Hylton – University of Maryland – College Park Honors College (also winner of Udall and Boren awards)
Imperial College London

Wei Jia – Stanford University
University of Oxford

Catherine Koch – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Oxford

Dixon Li – Princeton University
Queen Mary, University of London

Brandon Liu – Harvard University
School of Oriental and African Studies

Colleen Loynachan – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Imperial College London

Matthew McMillan – Wheaton College
University of Cambridge

Ahmad Nasir – United States Military Academy
University of Oxford

Mike Norton – University of Arkansas – Fayetteville, Honors College
University of Oxford

Samantha Olyha – Cornell University
University of Oxford

Derek Park – Yale University
University of Oxford

Craig Pearson – Michigan State University, Honors College, also interviewed for a Rhodes Scholarship
University of Cambridge

Rebecca Peters – University of California – Berkeley (also a Truman Scholar in 2013)
University of Manchester

Joana Petrescu – Villanova University
University of Cambridge

Nicholas Picon – Georgia Institute of Technology, Aerospace Engineering
Cranfield University

Madeline Sands – Arizona State University, Barrett Honors College, Anthropology
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Emily Shearer – Cornell University
University of Cambridge

Kirin Sinha – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Cambridge

Phillip Tucciarone – State University of New York – Buffalo, Honors College Chemical and Biological Engineering
University of Oxford

Jacob Wellman – University of New Mexico, Regents Scholar University Honors Program, Economics/Political Science
London School of Economics and Political Science

Anna Wherry – Johns Hopkins University
University of Oxford

Grace Young – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Oxford

U at Buffalo Student Adds a Marshall Scholarship to His Goldwater Award

Editor’s Note: The following post is by Marcene Robinson of the University at Buffalo.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Phillip Tucciarone, a University at Buffalo chemical and biological engineering student, has won a Marshall Scholarship, one of the most prestigious scholarships awarded annually to U.S. college students. 

Tucciarone is the first UB student to win a Marshall Scholarship since 1988 and is also a 2013 recipient of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship.

Up to 40 American students are awarded a Marshall Scholarship each year. 

The Marshall Scholarship will finance Tucciarone’s graduate study at a university in the United Kingdom, where he plans to study materials science.   Marshall Scholars now can be found among CEOs, Supreme Court justices, members of the U.S. Congress, Pulitzer Prize-winning authors and members of the U.S. Presidential Cabinet.

“This feels incredible and is a wonderful surprise, to be honest,” said Tucciarone, who will leave for London in September. “The award secures an exciting academic future for me over the next four years and makes a statement about the value of public higher education.”

A senior, Tucciarone is from Washingtonville in Orange County, N.Y., and is a graduate of Washingtonville High School.

The Marshall Scholarship is widely considered one of the most prestigious scholarships in the world, and works to strengthen the relationship between British and American citizens, and their governments and institutions. 

“The Marshall Scholarship is a mark of great distinction — these are not just some of the nation’s best and brightest young scholars, they are intellectually passionate, globally minded students dedicated to enriching the world around them,” said UB President Satish K. Tripathi. “This is exactly the kind of student that UB excels in educating.

Inspired by a desire to become a professor of materials science, Tucciarone will use the Marshall Scholarship to pursue a doctorate degree in materials science at either the University of Oxford or the Imperial College of London. He plans to join the groundbreaking research currently underway on graphene, one of the crystalline forms of carbon.

Graphene is considered the material of the future, Tucciarone said.  It has the potential to make electronics much faster, for example, and its most immediate use can be found in transistors, radio frequency devices and computer chips.

“If copper is your grandma’s Buick, then graphene is the new Ferrari,” he said.

Tucciarone has devoted much of his undergraduate research to nanomaterials and the development of methods of non-toxic bio-imaging, which play a role in cancer treatment. He has also co-authored and published two academic papers on his research in ACS Nano and Nano Letters, both monthly, peer-reviewed, scientific journals published by the American Chemical Society.

“In my 20-plus years teaching at UB, I’ve never seen such a display of leadership in one of my students,” says David Kofke, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering. “It is heartening to see this in an engineering student, where the workload promotes immersion in coursework without allowing time to take in the larger picture in life, let alone participate in it.”

A UB Honors College scholar, Tucciarone is president of the Honors Student Council, and works with inner city public schools through UB’s Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Partnership, funded by the National Science Foundation, which seeks to improve science education in Buffalo Public Schools.

As a junior, he founded an annual volunteer service trip to the Dominican Republic through the Honors Student Council, where he and other UB students helped teach English to children.

Tucciarone said he was inspired to pursue a career in higher education by his experiences at UB, combined with his volunteer work in Buffalo Public Schools and the Dominican Republic.

“The faculty at UB is incredible,” said Tucciarone. “I never felt disconnected from them and they engaged me from day one in the classroom and as personal mentors.

“Education is the strongest mechanism for change in the world,” he added.  “I want to bridge the gap between the United States and U.K. as a diplomat, gain experience, and work as a bridge for bilateral research and higher education.”

Education and science are just a few of Tucciarone’s many passions. He is starting winger for UB’s rugby team, and hopes to play for the Oxford Blues, the University of Oxford’s rugby team, when he moves to England next fall.  A jazz enthusiast, Tucciarone played trombone and bass in a swing band, and bass in a blues/rock band, Blank Check, in Washingtonville.

The highly competitive Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was founded in 1986 with the goal of alleviating the critical shortage of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians and engineers.

Rhodes Scholars 2014: UVA, Georgia Tech, UC Berkeley, Mississippi State, Tennessee, and Wisconsin Have Winners

The latest list of Rhodes Scholars (awarded in November 2013 for the year 2014) includes six recipients from Harvard, three from Yale, and two from Princeton, giving the Ivy League 11 of the 32 awards won by American Students for 2014.  Rhodes awards for the year 2013 included 16 winners from Ivy schools.

The University of Virginia led public universities with two winners for 2014; UVA also had a Rhodes scholar in 2013.   Virginia and North Carolina are the leaders among all state universities in the number of Rhodes Scholars earned by their graduates.  Georgia Tech had one awardee in 2014 and one in 2013. 

Congratulations to Virginia winner Evan Behrle, a Jefferson Scholar and Charles S. Tyson, a Beinecke Scholar.  Also congratulations to Mississippi State scholar Donald Mayfield Brown, whose senior thesis was on novelist Ralph Ellison.   Drew A. Birrenkott of the University of Wisconsin was previously a Goldwater Scholar.  Lindsay A. Lee of the University of Tennessee was diagnosed at age 3 with muscular dystrophy.  She plans to use her mathematics modeling to promote equal access to health care for all.  Melissa L. McCoy graduated summa cum laude in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech.  Zarko Perovic of UC Berkeley graduated in the top 5 in his class.  Growing up in Serbia, he witnessed firsthand the horror of war crimes, and his research will be directed at making it more feasible for victims to document atrocities.

The most prestigious academic award in the world, Rhodes Scholarships fund two or three years of study at Oxford;  at total of 838 students applied this year.  The approximate yearly value of a Rhodes Scholarship is $50,000.  Increasingly, it appears, the awards are going to students at elite private schools and the service academies, despite some relatively good showings by public universities in recent years.

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point had two winners for 2014. Last year, West Point and Annapolis each had one Rhodes scholar.  Stanford also had two.

Additional state university leaders throughout the history of  Rhodes Scholarships are Washington, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, UT Austin, Kansas, Mississippi, Arizona, Georgia, and Nebraska.

Rhodes winners are chosen after district-level interviews.  At the end of this post are the 32 winners for 2014, by district.

There are 16 districts:

2013 Districts

Please be aware that there may be changes in interview locations and the states grouped within Districts from year to year.

District 1 – New York, NY
(Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont)

District 2 – Boston, MA
(Connecticut, Massachusetts)

District 3 – New York, NY
(New York)

District 4 – Philadelphia, PA
(Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia)

District 5 – Washington, DC
(Maryland/DC, North Carolina)

District 6 – Atlanta, GA
(Georgia, Virginia)

District 7 – Birmingham, AL
(Alabama, Florida, Tennessee)

District 8 – Houston, TX
(Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas)

District 9 – Indianapolis, IN
(Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio)

District 10 – Chicago, IL
(Illinois, Michigan)

District 11 – Chicago, IL
(Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin)

District 12 – St. Louis, MO
(Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina)

District 13 – Colorado Springs, CO
(Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah)

District 14 – Seattle, WA
(Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming)

District 15 – San Francisco, CA
(California-North, Arizona, Nevada)

District 16 – Los Angeles, CA
(California-South, Hawaii)

Rhodes winners are chosen after district-level interviews.  Here are the 32 winners for 2014, by district.

District 1:

Jessica Wamala, Milford, N.H., Villanova University

Alexander Joel Diaz, North Bergen, N.J., Harvard University

District 2:

Elizabeth Hockfield Byrne, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University

Katherine Elida Warren, Bainbridge Island, Wash., Harvard University

District 3:

Isabel Emma Eggleston Beshar, Rye, N.Y., Yale University

Paolo Poggioni Singer, Bronx, N.Y., Harvard University

District 4:

Evan Barrett Behrle, Oxford, Penn., University of Virginia

Alexander Gerard Wang, Doylestown, Penn., New York University, Abu Dhabi

District 5:

Timothy Michael McGinnis, Charlotte, N.C., Princeton University

Charles Samuel Tyson, Chapel Hill, N.C. University of Virginia

District 6:

Brian Westfall McGrail, Arlington, Va., Williams College

Emma Pierson, Arlington, Va., Stanford University

District 7:

James O’Connell, Tampa, Fla., Wake Forest University

Lindsay Evans Lee, Oak Ridge, Tenn., University of Tennessee, Knoxville

District 8:

Melissa Loreice McCoy, Dallas, Texas, Georgia Institute of Technology

John Mikhael, Dallas, Texas, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

District 9:

Adam Mastroianni, Monroeville, Ohio, Princeton University

Courtney Wittekind, Mason, Ohio, Carnegie Mellon University

District 10:

Vinay Nayak, Oak Brook, Ill., Yale University

Calla Glavin, Birmingham, Mich., United States Military Academy

District 11:

Drew Alan Birrenkott, McFarland, Wisc., University of Wisconsin

Samuel Martin Greene, Spring Green, Wisc., University of Chicago

District 12:

Donald Mayfield Brown, Vicksburg, Miss., Mississippi State University

Joshua Allen Aiken, Eugene, Ore., Washington University, St. Louis

District 13:

Meredith Lukens Wheeler, Fort Collins, Colo., Stanford University

Erin Alexandra Tanith Mauldin, Albuquerque, N.M., United States Military Academy

District 14:

Suzanna Marie Fritzberg, Lake Forest Park, Wash., Yale University

Andrew Scott Lea, Richland, Wash., Harvard University

District 15:

Miles William Unterreiner, Santa Barbara, Calif., Stanford University

Clarke Knight, Henderson, Nev., Smith College

District 16:

Aurora Catherine Griffin, Westlake Village, Calif., Harvard University

Zarko Perovic, San Diego, Calif., University of California, Berkeley

Auburn Honors College Student Wins Marshall Scholarship

Editor’s Note: The following post is from the OANews…

Auburn University senior Patrick Donnan has been named a recipient of the prestigious Marshall Scholarship, becoming one of only 40 U.S. students selected to attend their choice of university in the United Kingdom.

“We are very proud of Patrick, both for his accomplishments at Auburn and for his being named a Marshall Scholar,” said Melissa Baumann, Auburn University assistant provost and director of the Honors College. “He has displayed great leadership in the classroom and the laboratory and in advancing science in the community.”

Auburn native Donnan, who has a 3.98 grade-point average, is a student in the Honors College double-majoring in physics and music, concentrating on the bassoon, and minoring in mathematics. He is also a 2013 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar and is a Rhodes Scholar finalist this year.

“I am truly humbled,” Donnan said. “Receiving the Marshall Scholarship is the culmination of all the work that my professors and Honors College staff have invested in me these past three years at Auburn. Even if I did not receive the award, going through the application process was beneficial in itself as it helped me grow as a person.

“I am looking forward to continuing my research in theoretical physics at Oxford and becoming a good ambassador for the United States and Auburn while abroad.”

Donnan conducts research in Auburn’s College of Sciences and Mathematics as a member of the theoretical and computational atomic physics group. He is an editor of the Auburn University Journal of Undergraduate Studies and has co-authored four peer-reviewed publications, one of which was published in Nature: The International Weekly Journal of Science.

“Patrick embodies a near ideal example of balance. He is an accomplished musician and an accomplished young scientist,” said Professor Ed Thomas, the Lawrence C. Wit Professor in the College of Sciences and Mathematics and one of Donnan’s research professors. “He has found a way to blend both of his passions into a seamless whole. Patrick not only has talent, but he has the dedication and self-awareness to put forth the effort and hard work to allow those talents to mature.”

Paul Harris, associate director for national prestigious scholarships in the Honors College, said, “I thoroughly enjoyed working with Patrick throughout the application process. He represents the very best of Auburn University and his generation. As a double major in physics and music, he is not only bright and intellectually engaging, but he also gives generously of his time and talents whether promoting research among his fellow physics majors or sharing his love for music as a member of the Auburn symphonic band.

The Marshall Scholarship program was established in 1953 by an act of British Parliament in honor of U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall as an expression of Britain’s gratitude for economic assistance received through the Marshall Plan after World War II. The program is overseen by the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission. Approximately 900 students are endorsed annually for the scholarship by their respective universities, for which 40 scholarships are awarded nationwide.

Arkansas Honors College Alum Wins Marshall Scholarship

Michael Norton, an alumnus of the honors college at the University of Arkansas, has won a Marshall Scholarship to study political science at Oxford University.  Norton also earned a Truman Scholarship in 2012, and he is going to interview for a Rhodes Scholarship in the near future.  New rules allow winners of the Marshall to go forward with other interviews.

Already in an elite group for having won a Marshall and a Truman scholarship, Norton would be in super-elite company if he were to add a Rhodes Scholarship.

UA senior Rachael Pelligrino will also interview for a Rhodes Scholarship.  In addition, she is a finalist for a Truman Scholarship.

Norton will become the 7th UA winner of a Marshall Scholarship.  The scholarships provide full funding for academic and living expenses for two years of study at any university in the United Kingdom.  Most winners choose Oxford, Cambridge, University College London, King’s College of London, the London School of Economics, or Imperial College of London.

Norton told the Arkansas Traveler that the UofA Office of Nationally Competitive Awards was central to the development of his successful application.

“The office is a great treasure of the university when it comes to these awards,” he said.  Suzanne McCray of that office is known for her mock “interviews.”

The Marshall Scholarship was established in 1953. It awards up to 40 American students each year.  For the 2013 year, 943 students applied for the scholarship and 34 were selected.