Student Researchers Nominated for Goldwater Scholarship
The Barry Goldwater Scholarship is a highly competitive, merit-based award for outstanding students in mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering who are interested in pursuing a career in research. The premier award for undergraduate students in STEM fields, the scholarship was established by Congress in 1986 to honor Senator Barry Goldwater, who showed a keen interest in science and technology during his 30 years in the U.S. Senate.
Northeastern University is honored to nominate four of its most distinguished science and engineering students for the 2017 Barry Goldwater Scholarship.
Minhal Ahmed COE ’19
As a high school senior in New York, Minhal Ahmed discovered his passion for neurobiology through Columbia University’s Science Honors Program. At Northeastern, Ahmed chose to study bioengineering because of the field’s potential to transform medical care through novel technologies. Ahmed, a member of the University Scholars and Honors Programs, has complemented his studies with research experience in Northeastern’s Advanced Biomaterials for NeuroEngineering Laboratory (ABNEL), as well as a research co-op in a neurobiology lab at Duke University School of Medicine. At Duke, Ahmed led a pilot project studying cerebellar circuit function during locomotion. Ahmed plans to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. and build a research career as a physician-scientist.
Trevor Gale COE ’18
Computer engineering major Trevor Gale has embarked upon multiple research experiences since arriving on Northeastern’s campus from his home state of Maine. Most recently, Gale’s co-op at Samsung Research America saw him contribute to the company’s seventh-in-the-world finish in the ImageNet competition. In Professor David Kaeli’s Computer Architecture Research (NUCAR) Lab, Gale has contributed to projects touching on topics including reliability, workload characterization, computer architecture, high-performance computing, general purpose graphics processing units, and machine learning. Gale is particularly interested in collaborations between academia and industry to drive research forward. A member of the university’s Honors Program, Gale plans to pursue a Ph.D. in computer engineering.
Benjamin Moran COS ’18
The recipient of a 2015 Goldwater Honorable Mention, University Scholar and Honors student Benjamin Moran came to Northeastern with a passion for marine biology, even though he grew up far from the ocean in Ohio. His extensive record of research includes work to assemble a de novo central nervous system transcriptome of the brown ghost knifefish, a project on the expression of the bloodthirsty gene in zebrafish, a fisheries management study, and work in statistical genetics. Moran has undertaken a co-op at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, where he engaged in cutting-edge marine science research, and completed Northeastern’s Three Seas Program. Moran received the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hollings Scholarship in 2015 and plans to obtain a Ph.D. in biological oceanography.
Hannah Tam COS ’19
An accomplished musician and research scientist, Hannah Tam is dually enrolled in Northeastern’s biochemistry program and in the music performance program at the New England Conservatory. The complex, precisely coordinated movements involved in playing a musical instrument inspired and continue to inform Tam’s research on neural motor control in Professor Dagmar Sternad’s Action Lab. Tam also researches factors affecting the lifespan of C. elegans in Professor Javier Apfeld’s biology lab, and she has completed summer projects on four-dimensional diagnostics for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Tam, an Oregonian and University Honors student, performs as principal clarinetist of the Northeastern University Symphony Orchestra, and plans to focus her doctoral studies on neuromotor control in musicians.