Two Ohio Northern University students have been selected as Goldwater Scholars by the trustees of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.
This marks the ninth consecutive year that ONU students have been recognized by the trustees of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. During this time, 10 ONU students have been selected as Goldwater scholars, and five have received honorable mention.
Morgan Hammer, a senior chemistry and mathematics double major, and Courtney Olson, a junior ACS chemistry major, have been selected to receive Goldwater Scholarships, the premier undergraduate award in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. Both Hammer and Olson have physics minors and membership in ONU’s Honors Program.
A native of Findlay, Ohio, Hammer conducted his research on “Computational Studies of Functionalized Porphyrins for OPV Applications” under the guidance of Dr. Trilisa Perrine, assistant professor of chemistry at ONU.
Hammer has presented his research on this topic three times: twice during October 2011 at the Midwestern Symposium on Undergraduate Research in Chemistry at Michigan State University and the Joint Midwest/Great Lakes Regional ACS Meeting in St. Louis, and again in April 2012 at the ONU Student Research Colloquium. He will present further developments on this project at the ONU Student Research Colloquium this spring.
Prior to working with Perrine, Hammer conducted research into residual gas mass analysis with Christopher Bowers, an associate professor of chemistry at ONU. He completed a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates in computational chemistry at the University of Michigan during summer 2012 and presented the results of this research at the University of Notre Dame summer undergraduate research symposium.
In fall 2012, Hammer joined the analytical chemistry research group of Nicole Dickson, assistant professor of chemistry at ONU.
A native of Hayward, Wis., Olson was honored for her Goldwater research essay, “Observations of Dimer Behavior of a Donor-Acceptor Cross-Conjugated Molecule in Different Solvents.”
Olson is conducting this research at ONU under the guidance of Dickson. Olson, a 2012 recipient of the chemistry department’s summer research fellowship, presented her research in October at the ONU Summer Research Poster Session.
She will present further research on this project at the ONU Student Research Colloquium in April 2013.
Under the mentorship of Perrine, Olson is writing a laboratory procedure for the department’s differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) to be used in future physical chemistry laboratory courses.
This project is an extension of her physical chemistry coursework and counts towards her completion of the Honors Program. As a sophomore, Olson was selected for the department’s Undergraduate Award in Analytical Chemistry.
Established in 1986 to honor Sen. Barry M. Goldwater, the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation fosters and encourages outstanding students to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. Since its first award in 1989, the Foundation has bestowed more than 6,550 scholarships worth approximately $40 million.
For the 2013-14 academic year, the Foundation awarded 271 scholarships to undergraduate sophomores and juniors from the United States. The Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,107 students nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide.
