Alisa Davis '01, Andrew Berglund '00 and Andrew Thompson '01 are among the 304 recipients of this year's national Goldwater Scholarships. The awards are granted for the 1999-2000 academic year to undergraduate sophomores and juniors.
The Goldwater Scholarship awards students in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. The scholarship program honoring former Senator Barry M. Goldwater encourages outstanding students to pursue careers in these fields.
"The winners receive a stipend of $7,500 to be used for educational expenses," Assistant Director of Career Services Ursula Hibbert-Olender said. "It is important that the students be involved in research in their field so that they will be more competitive candidates."
The Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,181 mathematics, science and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide.
Of the winners, 179 are men and 125 are women. Seventeen scholars are mathematics majors, 184 are science majors, 42 are majors in engineering, four are majoring in computer science and 57 have dual majors in a variety of science-related disciplines.
Davis, who has worked on research teams at the Dartmouth Medical School and the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, plans to research in the field of pharmacological and toxicology mechanisms in the human body.
She hopes "to lead an investigative research group in either an academic or industrial setting, focusing upon determination of the toxicological mechanisms of certain disease-causing agents in the human body and developing pharmacological counter-mechanisms to treat and inhibit disease."
"I want to continue researching the biochemistry of what goes on when you get cancer," Davis said. Other plans after college include "graduate school and pursuing a Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology," she said.
Berglund, who also plans to earn a Ph.D., wants to study quantum optics. Last fall he worked in the quantum computation group at Los Alamos National Laboratory before returning to campus to work with physics Professor Jay Lawrence on "Discrete Models of Quantum Electrodynamics."
Thompson said he plans to become either a research scientist or a professor. After working as a Presidential Scholar with Professor Ulf Osterberg on his "Frequency Domain Optical Imaging of Breast Cancer" project, Thompson spent last winter conducting research at Pacific National Laboratory with its Remote Sensing Division studying re-vegetation of Mount St. Helens and this summer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
Usually eight to 10 students submit applications each year to the Committee on Graduate Fellowships.
This committee, consisting of members from different departments, then selects four nominees after reviewing applications and conducting interviews.
The committee includes English Professor and Department Chair Monica Otter, history Professor Bruce Nelson, Assistant Professor of classics Margaret Graver, psychology Professor Howard Hughes, computer science Professor David Nicol and mathematics Professor Marcia Groszek.
Scholars in the past, for example, have earned 25 Rhodes Scholarships -- six of 32 selected in the U.S. for 1999, 19 Marshall Awards, six Churchill, nine Fulbright, 23 Hughes, and 65 National Science Foundation.
The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, in its 11-year history, has awarded 2,711 scholarships worth approximately $28 million. The Trustees plan to award about 300 scholarships for the 2000-2001 academic year.
