Five Stanford University third-year undergraduates have been selected as 2024 Barry Goldwater Scholars, which provides annual scholarships of up to $7,500 to support students pursuing research careers in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering fields. .
The 2024 recipients are Julie Chen ’25, Silas Hajian ’25, Jere Kim ’25, Andrei Mandelstam ’25, and Sidra Xu ’25. A total of 438 scholarships were awarded nationwide from 1,353 candidates for the 2024-2025 academic year. Since they are all third-year students, each recipient will receive support for her one school year.
The Goldwater Scholarship wants to encourage promising scholars to pursue ambitious research.
“Being named a Goldwater Scholar really fueled my passion for research,” said Hajian, who studies biology. “When you come here from community college, you tend to feel really out of place, so I felt it was warranted. I have received a lot of gratitude and gratitude.”
Stanford University holds an internal application process for nominations for Barry Goldwater Scholarships each fall. The applicant asks three of her people (usually the supervisor or principal investigator of the laboratory where the research will be conducted) to write letters of recommendation. A committee led by the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education's Fellowship team will then review the applications and decide which applicants to recommend. The committee can recommend up to five people, four undergraduate students and one transfer student.
Some recipients plan to pursue careers in academia. Chen, a computer science major, hopes to pursue a Ph.D. She will pursue a PhD in biology and continue her research into disease and disease development. Xu is a computer science and biology double major and plans to pursue a Ph.D. She majors in developmental genomics and studies pediatrics and bioinformatics.
Hajian, who transferred from community college in 2022, is currently researching the use of poison dart frog plasma proteins. He hopes to pursue his MD degree. And he continues his research in immunology.
“Stanford allowed me to explore,” Hajian said. “I had never been exposed to anything related to biological biology before.”
Kim, a biology major who is interested in systems neuroscience, or developing tools for studying circuits in the brain, echoed Haijan's sentiments and said he is excited to explore new fields thanks to Stanford University. He said he was able to do so. After studying fly genetics in high school, Kim discovered her passion for neuroscience after reading Stanford professor Karl Deiseroth's book Projection. Kim is currently working in Deiseroth's laboratory.
“Curiosity has always driven me to all sorts of interests, and I think Stanford opened my eyes to everything there is out there,” Kim said. “Stanford offers so many opportunities and is interdisciplinary in so many ways.”
Kim is pursuing an MD degree. And he works in his own lab as a physician-scientist, researching neuroscience while treating patients.
Mandelshtam majored in mathematics and is enrolled in an associate's degree program in computer science, currently researching combinatorics. He studied an extension of the classical Ulamite order problem, focusing on Ulamite words rather than Ulamite numbers. Mandelstam's long-term goal is to become a research professor and continue his research in mathematics.
“I hope to continue expanding the scope of theory and knowledge that exists within mathematics. I hope to be an important contributor in the future,” Mandelstam said.
While Kim praised the accomplishments and ambitions of his fellow Goldwater Scholars, he said talent and hard work are nearly omnipresent at Stanford.
“A lot of the people I've met here are doing really great work and really great research,” Kim said. “I think they should be recognized for that as well.”
