Juniors Tamara Broderick, Jonathan Charlesworth, Lester Mackey and Julie Wu were selected as winners of the 2006 Goldwater Scholarship on the basis of their academic merit in math, science or engineering.
This is the fourth straight year that all four nominees from Princeton — the maximum any University can nominate — were named winners. Harvard had two winners, while Yale and MIT each had three.
The $7,500 award is designed to "provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in those fields," according to the scholarship's website. The prize money will go towards tuition and fees in the 2006-07 academic year.
Though all four winners this year were juniors, the prize is available to sophomores as well. Sophomore winners receive the stipend for two years.
Broderick, a math major from Cleveland, Ohio, said that she heard about the award opportunity from friends and approached Associate Dean of the College Claire Fowler about being nominated. "I guess that showed that I was expressing interest, and I guess that put me in the pool," she said.
Generally, Fowler nominates a group of sophomores and juniors and then narrows the pack to four before submitting the applications to the Goldwater Foundation.
Broderick has been conducting research since her senior year in high school, when she studied the physics of dark energy. In the summer after her freshman year, she worked with the Gravity Group in the physics department on a project about gravitational lensing.
Broderick also worked for the Department of Defense in her sophomore summer. Her junior paper revolves around "a machine-learning project for tracking animals in Panama," for which statistics are used to maximize the expected likelihood of the animals' paths. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in applied mathematics.
Charlesworth, a molecular biology major from Richmond, Va., plans to pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience and aims to conduct cellular and molecular research to study cognitive processes. He is also a mile runner on the Princeton track team.
Mackey, a computer science major from Long Island, N.Y., also plans to pursue a Ph.D. and research efficient dispersal of digital information.
Wu, a molecular biology major, is from Marlboro, N.J. She plans to pursue a M.D./Ph.D. in molecular biology and wants to combine physics, chemistry, computer science and biology to study critical biomedical issues.
The Goldwater Foundation, established by Congress in 1986, is a federally-endowed program to honor the late Arizona senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. To date, the Foundation has awarded approximately 4,885 awards, totaling around $48 million.
Out of a total of 1,081 nominees, 323 scholars were ultimately selected, of which 182 are men and 141 are women. About two-thirds of the winners are science majors, while the rest are mathematics, engineering or computer science majors.
Almost all scholars indicated that they plan to pursue Ph.D.'s in their fields. Many Goldwater Scholars go on to receive Rhodes Scholarships and Marshall awards, as well as other honors.
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