EDUCATION:
Bright Kids: Goldwater Scholars
At least 16 U.S. college students of South Asian descent are among the 321 Goldwater Scholars named for the 2008-2009 academic year. A Siliconeer report.
(Above, from left): Vikram Agarwal, Parbir Singh Grewal, Naeem Shahab Husain, Tarun Kumar Jain and Sesha Nilmini Pinnaduwage. (Bottom, from left): Ritika Samant, Aakash Kaushik Shah, Aarti Sharma, Arunan Skandarajah and Pratik Talati.
At least 16 U.S. college students of South Asian descent have been named Goldwater Scholars for the 2008-2009 academic year. According to an announcement, 321 scholarships were awarded for the 2008–2009 academic year to undergraduate sophomores and juniors from the United States. The Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,035 mathematics, science, and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide.
The scholarships are administered by the Goldwater Foundation, a federally endowed agency established in November, 1986. The scholarship program honors Arizona U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater, and was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields.
The South Asian Goldwater Scholars are: Safia Ahmed, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; Rajeev K. Anchan, Creighton University, Omaha, Neb.; Vikram Agarwal, University of Texas at Austin; Parbir Singh Grewal, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; Naeem Shahab Husain, University of Texas at Austin; Tarun Kumar Jain, New York University, New York City; Neil Bharat Patel, Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D.; Sesha Nilmini Pinnaduwage, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; Vinay Ramasesh, University of North Texas, Denton; Ritika Samant University of Delaware, Newark; Aakash Kaushik Shah, Ursinus College, Collegeville, Penn.; Shrenik Nitin Shah, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; Aarti Sharma, University of Illinois at Chicago; Arunan Skandarajah, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; Swarup Sai Swaminathan, Columbia University, New York City; and Pratik Talati University of Alabama at Birmingham.
In addition to the winners, nine college students of South Asian descent have received honorable mention. They are: Isha Agarwal, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; Abhiram Ramaswamy Bhashyam, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.; Korok Chatterjee, University of North Texas, Denton; Kaveri Korgavkar, Michigan State University, East Lansing; Salman Haider Naqvi, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark; Tulsi Patel, University of Georgia, Athens; Suraj Hitendra Rambhia, State University of New York at Stony Brook; Sonali Jagdish Shah, University of Connecticut, Storrs; and Viral Shailesh Shah, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
According to a foundation release, “Goldwater Scholars have very impressive academic qualifications that have garnered the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs. Recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 70 Rhodes Scholarships, 94 Marshall Awards (8 of the 40 awarded in the United States in 2008), and numerous other distinguished fellowships.”
In its 20-year history, the foundation has awarded 5,523 scholarships worth approximately $54 million. The trustees plan to award about 300 scholarships for the 2009–2010 academic year.
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