Two University students were among 321 students nationwide to receive the Goldwater Scholarship last week, an honor that recognizes undergraduate excellence and potential in mathematics, engineering and the natural sciences. The winners receive up to $7,500 each year for two years to continue their work in those fields beyond the collegiate level.
Third-year College students Courtney Schroeder and Adam Nichols-Nielander, both biochemistry majors, were selected from a pool of 1,035 nominees, according to a press release from the Goldwater Scholarship program.
Nichols-Nielander has been doing research in Chemistry Prof. W. Dean Harman's lab since the second semester of his first year, he said. A Harrison Undergraduate Research Award winner and Chemistry 181 teaching assistant, Nichols-Nielander studies organometallics, a field that he said brings organic and inorganic chemistry together.
Schroeder, who is currently chair of the University's Undergraduate Research Network, is researching glutamylation, a modification of tubulin, which she believes gives cells spatial information about the location of proteins within the cell. She has an internship with the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Germany for this summer.
In the long term, both plan to attend graduate school, earn doctorates and eventually become professors. Nichols-Nielander said he aspires to research renewable energy, while Schroeder said she plans to continue biochemistry research.
Nichols-Nielander added that he and Schroeder met the first day of school and have been taking chemistry classes together ever since.
"After all we've been through together, to get nationally recognized is pretty cool," he said.
According to the press release, recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 70 Rhodes Scholarships, 94 Marshall Awards and numerous other distinguished fellowships.
Schroeder noted the recent honor makes her "really excited to do research," adding, "it's nice knowing there's support in pursuing this career"
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