Texas A&M Junior Nicholas Mondrik ’15 Named 2014 Goldwater Scholar
COLLEGE STATION —
Texas A&M University junior physics major Nicholas P. Mondrik ’15 has been named a 2014 Goldwater Scholar by the Goldwater Scholarship Foundation in recognition of outstanding academic achievement.
Mondrik is the 40th Texas A&M student who has been recognized by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program, the nation’s most prestigious award for undergraduates in the sciences, since the program was founded in 1986.
In addition to Mondrik, sophomore environmental geosciences major Amelie Berger earned Goldwater Honorable Mention honors.
Mondrik, a native of Belton, Texas, has worked in Dr. Lin Shao’s Ions and Materials Facility in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and for Dr. Darren DePoy in the Munnerlyn Astronomical Instrumentation Lab. Currently, he is working on heat transfer simulation for the VIRUS project (Visible Integral-Field Replicable Unit Spectrographs) and on preliminary data from the Dark Energy Survey underway in Cerro Tololo, Chile.
Mondrik came across the Goldwater Scholarship when he was looking at websites with information on graduate school profiles and decided to check it out. He wrote his research proposal on looking for outliers and variable stars in the Dark Energy Survey data.
“The ideal candidate is one who devotes significant time and effort not only in the classroom, but also in the lab, where acquired research tools are put into practice,” Mondrik said.
A National Merit Scholar coming out of high school, Mondrik is also a Society of Physics Students tutor for underclassmen. His future pursuits include attending graduate school at Princeton, Caltech, Cambridge or Harvard to study astronomy or astrophysics.
The Goldwater Scholarship recognizes college students nationwide in the science, mathematics, and engineering fields, selecting approximately 300 junior and senior students each year. It is considered the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields. Scholarship recipients are selected based on a criteria composed of reference letters, personal essays, and research experience.
For additional information about the Goldwater Scholarship or other award programs, visit Texas A&M Honors Programs and Undergraduate Research.
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Contact: Hayley Cox, hayleycox@exchange.tamu.edu
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