For display “exceptional promise” of apropos a “next era of investigate leaders,” dual Columbia Engineering juniors have perceived Goldwater Scholarships, among a many prestigious awards noticing tip undergraduates in engineering, mathematics, and a healthy sciences.
Chemical engineer Justin Bui ’۱۹ and biomedical engineer Rachel Mintz ’۱۹ were any named Goldwater Scholars, garnering adult to $7,500 any for their studies over a subsequent year, while biomedical operative Janice Chung ‘۱۹ warranted an honest mention. Established in respect of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, a federally-endowed Goldwater Scholarships are deliberate a preeminent awards of their kind. Just 211 awardees were comparison this year from 1,280 nominees.
“I am intensely respected that a Goldwater cabinet has adequate faith in my intensity as a researcher to yield me this inexhaustible funding,” pronounced Bui, who researches how computational margin dynamics can urge solar fuel technologies. “It will assistance me attend a Electrochemical Society National Conference to benefaction some of my new investigate and accommodate some-more of a tip researchers in my field.”
Bui will work during Caltech this summer to rise novel architectures for photoelectrochemical cells on an Amgen Scholars Fellowship. Considering apropos a highbrow of chemical engineering, he skeleton to acquire a PhD building techniques for harvesting solar energy.
Mintz, who focuses on targeted oncological therapeutics, works in Professor Kam Leong’s Nanotherapeutics and Stem Cell lab on sensitizing breast cancer cells to chemotherapy. She is cofounder and boss of a Columbia Systems Biology Initiative and was partial of a group that warranted a bullion award in a iGEM foe for programming skin microbes to hide healthy butterfly repellent that need not be reapplied. She skeleton to acquire her MD/PhD and one day lead her possess lab engineering new ways to provide cancer.
“I truly trust investigate is a best approach to urge people’s lives in a prolonged run,” Mintz said. “I wish to mix a vicious meditative and technical skills we acquire by my biomedical engineering vital to solve real-world medical problems and use society.”
Chung works with Professor Sam Sia on microtissue engineering to diagnose cancer and potentially provide diabetes and assistance forestall obesity. She skeleton to pursue a career in medicine building inclination that offer patients’ needs, and eventually enter academia.
“Coming into college, we didn’t comprehend I’d suffer investigate as most as we do now,” Chung said. “The Goldwater module is a covenant to a passion for building solutions that drives the investigate community.”
—by Jesse Adams
