{"id":45488,"date":"2015-04-23T14:49:42","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T14:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/?p=45488"},"modified":"2020-01-28T20:05:14","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T20:05:14","slug":"augsburgs-best-showing-in-goldwater-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/2015\/04\/23\/augsburgs-best-showing-in-goldwater-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Augsburg’s Best Showing In Goldwater Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Juniors Fik\"Goldwater<\/a>re Beyene (Physics) and Lyle Nyberg (Biology and Chemistry) have been selected as Goldwater Scholars, and junior Andris\u00a0Bibelnieks (Math, Physics & Computer Science), as Goldwater Honorable Mention.\u00a0 The Goldwater Scholarship\u00a0is the premier undergraduate award of its type for students pursuing research careers in STEM.<\/p>\n

Winners receive up to $7,500 for undergraduate education costs.\u00a0 More valuable than the monetary award is the moniker “Goldwater Scholar,” which serves as a shorthand to graduate and fellowship programs that these STEM students are among the nation’s top undergraduates in their respective areas. For example, recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 86\u00a0Rhodes Scholarships, 123\u00a0Marshall Awards, 123\u00a0Churchill Scholarships, and numerous other distinguished fellowships, such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships.<\/p>\n

Lyle, Fikre, and Andris were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,206\u00a0mathematics, science, and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide. Each college, regardless of the size or kind of institution, can nominate only four candidates. Candidates are carefully vetted by each sponsoring institution so the resulting field is formidable.<\/p>\n

This year, among Minnesota private schools, Augsburg had the highest number of scholars (Augsburg with two and St. Olaf and Gustavus each with one), and when honorable mentions are included Augsburg rose to the top as well.<\/p>\n

All Augsburg nominees participated in research on campus under the guidance of faculty mentors. Augsburg’s STEM departments are dedicated to creating opportunities where students\u00a0can\u00a0play a significant role in the research process.\u00a0 These experiences helped students develop a deeper understanding of their projects and their fields, as was evident in the quality of their applications.<\/p>\n

Profiles:<\/p>\n

Fikre Beyene (Sundquist Scholar, McNair Scholar, Rossing Physics Honorable Mention ’14, Rossing Physics Scholar ’15, and AugSTEM scholar) has worked in Dr. David Murr’s space physics lab and plans to pursue a\u00a0Ph.D. in Cosmology and conduct research investigating dark matter and the early stages of the universe. He will continue his research with Dr. Murr this summer.<\/p>\n

Lyle Nyberg (Lindstrom Scholar) has worked with Dr. Vivian Feng at the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology housed at the U of M. He plans to pursue a\u00a0Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and enlist in the Air Force where he hopes to conduct research aboard the International Space Station. Last fall he was selected to participate in an informational weekend at the famous Scripps Research Institute in Florida In April, he co-presented (with Augsburg student Hilena Frew) his research on nanotechnology at Harvard University. This summer he will be conducting research at University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Andris Bibelnieks has worked with Dr. Ben Stottrup and Dr. Pavel Belik and plans to pursue a\u00a0Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics \u00a0and conduct research to create new\u00a0composite materials. This summer he will return to the Boundary Waters as an outfitter, where his interest in composite canoe materials first was sparked.<\/div>\n
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URGO wants to thank the applicants for their hard work, the faculty letter writers who took great care to write meaningful and convincing letters, and research mentors \u00a0and classroom teachers for developing these students as researchers.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
It’s a great time for science as Augsburg.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juniors Fikre Beyene (Physics) and Lyle Nyberg (Biology and Chemistry) have been selected as Goldwater Scholars, and junior Andris\u00a0Bibelnieks (Math, Physics & Computer Science), as Goldwater Honorable Mention.\u00a0 The Goldwater Scholarship\u00a0is the premier undergraduate award of its type for students pursuing research careers in STEM. Winners receive up to $7,500 for undergraduate education costs.\u00a0 More …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/231"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45488"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47876,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45488\/revisions\/47876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/urgo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}