Goldwater Scholars Announced

Seven Harvard students were among 316 undergraduates across the nation who were awarded Goldwater Scholarships for academic achievement in math, science and engineering on Wednesday.

The scholarships, awarded by the Goldwater Foundation, were either for one or two years, providing $7,500 each year toward the cost of a college education.

The scholarship recognizes college sophomores and juniors for academic achievement and is one of the few opportunities for science-oriented non-seniors to obtain scholarships.

"This is one of the few scholarships which rewards science research for non-seniors," said awardee F. Edward Boas '99. "There are plenty of scholarships for seniors."

The Goldwater Foundation made its list of winners public April 1, but the Harvard award recipients have not yet been officially notified.

"I'm surprised they haven't sent out an official notification yet," Boas said.

Most of the winners found out about the results through an e-mail message that circulated between them with the foundation's Web site address.

Several of the winners knew each other from before their Harvard days. Five of them participated in the prestigious six-week long Research Science Institute program at MIT for high school students, and a few of them worked on a Westinghouse project together.

The ten-year-old foundation was named after former Sen. Barry M. Goldwater '64 (R-Ariz) and has awarded 2,407 scholarships worth $25 million.

The seven Harvard winners were Boas of Quincy House, Irene A. Chen `99 of Mather House, Samit Dasgupta '99 of Dunster House, James T.L. Grimmelman '99 of Quincy, Jennifer E. Hoffman '99 of Pforzheimer House, Benjamin A. Rahn '99 of Quincy and Deborah E. Yeh '99 of Winthrop House.

Harvard nominated four men and four women to the competition. The Office of Career Services selected the University's nominees from a pool of applicants.

Yesterday, Goldwater winners said they were excited to receive the scholarship.

"I'm really happy," Grimmelmann said. "It's validation for taking academics seriously. I feel validated."