Jan Buzek and Nuria Alina Chandra are among this year's Goldwater Scholars. The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation was established by Congress in 1986 to serve as a living memorial to honor the lifetime work of Senator Barry Goldwater, who served his country for 56 years as a soldier and statesman, including 30 years in the U.S. Senate. It is one of the oldest and most prestigious national scholarships in the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics in the United States, identifying, encouraging, and financially supporting college sophomores and juniors who show exceptional promise in becoming the next generation of research leaders in these fields.
Jan Buzek is a junior studying computer science and mathematics with a particular interest in number theory, cryptography, and algorithms. "I’ve been interested in math and computer science since an early age, and that interest has only grown. I’ve expanded my foundations in these fields through classes on analysis, probability, and complexity theory. As a freshman I began exploring contemporary math through a WDRP project on Chip Firing on Graphs, and later through a WXML project in probability." Buzek recently published a collaborative paper titled "Finding twin smooth integers by solving Pell equations" and is currently studying abroad at the University of Heidelberg followed by a semester at ETH Zürich.
Nuria Alina Chandra is a senior in the Honors Program majoring in computer science and minoring in global health. Chandra is currently part of the Mostafavi Computational Biology Lab, where they develop and apply machine learning and statistical methods to study biology, including mechanisms of human health and disease. "My driving long-term goal is impact. I want my research to help reduce the global burden of disease." She has also worked on two projects at Seattle Children’s Pediatric Pain and Sleep Innovations Lab under the mentorship of Dr. Jennifer Rabbits investigating the progression of pain from acute to chronic, with Dr. Rekha Thomas on a geometric combinatorics research project on the graphical designs of paths, and as a writer for The Daily. "My interest in journalism was spurred by the pandemic. During quarantine I started reading a lot more books and newspapers, with a particular focus on scientific communication." Chandra plans to pursue a PhD in computer science.
Read the UAA news article to learn more about all five UW recipients.