April 30, 2019

Congratulations to Drexel's 2019 Goldwater Scholarship recipients – James Minock and Johannes Wagner!

These students were selected from a highly-competitive pool of 5,000 natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering college sophomores and juniors that were nominated by 443 academic institutions across the United States. We are delighted they've been recognized for their hard work and potential!

--

James Minock (BS Physics ‘20, Honors) is a fourth year physics student minoring in computer science. James began research in the STAR Scholars Program with Professor Michelle Dolinski for the Precision Oscillation and Spectrum Experiment (PROSPECT) Collaboration. He worked on optimizing detector design. For his first and second coops, James continued work with PROSPECT. His research work includes: development of computational analysis methods, data analysis of background signals, and assembly of detector components at Yale University. For his third coop, James will be an application developer for University of Pennsylvania's Center for Biomedical Image Computing and Analytics working with their Cancer Imaging Phenomics Toolkit. James plans to pursue a PhD in physics, focusing with research in experimental neutrino physics.

Johannes Wagner (BS Physics ’20, Honors) is a junior physics student minoring in mathematics, computer science and data science. Johannes started his research career with PROSPECT, a reactor antineutrino experiment, under Dr. Russell Neilson. He spent his first co-op designing a simulation for light pulse data sets and working on PMT timing analysis for calibration of the PROSPECT detector. For his second co-op he worked on data analysis and hardware for Dr. Neilson’s other project PICO, a dark matter direct detection experiment. He is currently on his final co-op at Michigan State University, where he is performing astrophysical source analysis using “big data” filtration techniques and machine learning for the IceCUBE experiment under Prof. Claudio Kopper. Johannes plans to pursue a PhD in physics, focusing on computational particle physics.

***

The Goldwater Scholarship recognizes the nation's top undergraduates in natural science, engineering, and mathematics and is the preeminent undergraduate award of its type in these field. As Goldwater Scholars, James and Johannes are among just 496 college students from across the United States selected from candidates nominated by 443 academic institutions. Goldwater Scholars receive an educational scholarship of up to $7,500/year, as well as national recognition in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

These students join a community of scholars with impressive academic and research qualifications, which often garner the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs. Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 92 Rhodes Scholarships, 137 Marshall Scholarships, 159 Churchill Scholarships, 104 Hertz Fellowships and numerous other distinguished awards like the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships.

Read the full press release on the Goldwater Scholarship website. See previous Drexel Goldwater Scholars and Honorable Mentions.

• Michelle Dolinski, Associate Professor, Physics
• Dave Goldberg, Associate Department Head for Undergraduate Studies and Professor, Physics
  
• Ekaterina Pomerantseva, Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
• Maureen Tang, Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biological Engineering 

The Goldwater Scholarship was established by Congress in 1986, with the goal of recognizing the nation's top undergraduates in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math fields. The purpose of the Foundation is to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields.

For more information about the Goldwater Scholarship, please email the Center for Scholar Development.