Four Rutgers students win prestigious Goldwater Scholarships

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – The research accomplishments and stellar academic records of four Rutgers University students have earned them prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships, awarded for excellence in mathematics, science and engineering.

Juniors Alina Afinogenova of Princeton, Varun Arvind of Piscataway, Margaret Morash of Bernardsville and Aditya Parikh of Plainsboro are among 260 undergraduates selected by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation to receive awards this year.

The scholarships cover educational expenses up to $7,500 per year for each winner’s remaining one or two years of college.

According to the Goldwater Foundation, scholars often garner the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs, such as the Rhodes, Marshall and Churchill scholarships and awards.

Along with outstanding academic performance, all of the students include advanced research in their undergraduate experience.

Varun Arvind studies how stem cells can be used to generate bone tissue. A stem cell is a general type of biological cell that later differentiates into a specific organ or tissue cell. The stem cells that Arvind works with take two weeks to differentiate into bone, fat or cartilage tissue. By examining how proteins remodel in these cells before they differentiate, he and his Rutgers biomedical engineering colleagues hope to predict the type of tissue that the cells will become – a development that could help repair damaged tissues in the body.

Arvind started working in professor Prabhas Moghe’s lab during summers while he was a high school student at the Woodbridge Academy for Allied Health and Biomedical Sciences.

“That really fostered my love of science and research in the scientific method,” he said. One of his mentors at that time was Simon Gordonov, who won a Goldwater Scholarship in 2009 and a Churchill Scholarship to Cambridge University in the United Kingdom the following year.

Arvind plans to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. program after he graduates from Rutgers. While his ambitions lean toward academic research, he feels that a medical education will keep him focused on the patient as the beneficiary of his research.

ing for months,” said Morash. “It is what inspired me to pursue research at college.”

Aditya Parikh analyzes atomic collisions in the world’s largest particle accelerator – the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland. For one month each year, the LHC accelerates ions of lead around its 17-mile ring to probe the force that binds fundamental particles of matter to each other. Working with physics professor Sevil Salur, he derives correction factors for data that Salur’s research team obtains from these heavy metal ion collisions.

Parikh spent last summer working at CERN – the European Organization for Nuclear Research – where the LHC is located, and plans to go back this summer as part of a National Science Foundation-funded undergraduate research program. He remembers focusing on physics in eighth grade when he participated in Science Olympiad competitions. His parents were supportive of his newfound interest.

“They encouraged me to push ahead when things got tough,” said Parikh, who attended West Windsor Plainsboro High School North. “When I told them about the Goldwater scholarship, they were completely ecstatic. It was a proud moment for them.”

He plans to pursue doctoral studies in physics after graduating from Rutgers, and hopes to teach and do research in theoretical particle physics and astrophysics.

The Goldwater Foundation is a federally endowed agency established by public law in 1986. The scholarship program honoring the late U.S. Sen. Barry M. Goldwater was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. It is regarded as the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields.

“We are proud that for the first time, we have four Goldwater scholarship winners in the same year,” said Arthur D. Casciato, director of the university’s Office of Distinguished Fellowships. Casciato notes that 19 students have won Goldwater scholarships in the past eight years, and four of those earned Gates Cambridge Scholarships or Churchill Scholarships in their senior years.

Rutgers students who are interested in applying for Goldwater scholarships should contact the Office of Distinguished Fellowships for further information and assistance.