Vanderbilt University Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Each year, Vanderbilt University is given the opportunity to nominate up to 4 outstanding sophomore and junior students in the math, science and engineering fields for the Goldwater Scholars competition.  Three hundred and twenty-one scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,035 mathematics, science, and engineering students who were nominated by colleges and universities nationwide.  The two year scholarships contribute $7,500/year towards educational expenses. Each of the candidates nominated this year have been named 2008 Goldwater Scholars.

Sesha Pinnaduwage is a junior from Memphis who is studying Chemical Engineering, with minors in Math and Biotechnology.  She plans to earn PhD in chemical engineering in order to pursue a career in cancer research. Selected for the Chemical Engineering honors program, her independent research project over the next year will continue her work with cancer cell metastasis under the direction of Dr. Peter Cummings.  Sesha has been a council member in the Mayfield Living/Learning lodge for the past two years, is a team leader for Vanderbilt Student Volunteers for Science (VSVS) and serves as a V2 Mentor for first-year engineering students. She is currently in Sydney, Australia where she is spending the semester as a student at the University of New South Wales.

Of the 321 recipients of the 2008 Goldwater, 189 of the Scholars are men, 132 are women, and virtually all intend to obtain a Ph.D. as their degree objective. Thirty-three Scholars are mathematics majors, 227 are science and related majors, 52 are majoring in engineering, and 9 are computer science majors. Many of the Scholars have dual majors in a variety of mathematics, science, engineering, and computer disciplines.

The Goldwater Foundation is a federally endowed agency established by Public Law 99-661 on November 14, 1986. The Scholarship Program honoring Senator Barry M. Goldwater 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.