KU News Release

Four KU students competing for national Goldwater scholarships

LAWRENCE — Four University of Kansas students have been nominated to compete for national Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships, regarded as the premier undergraduate award to encourage excellence in science, engineering and mathematics.

KU’s nominees, all juniors, are:

— Rachel L. Debes, Hays, mathematics major
— Thornton W. Thompson, Lenexa, biochemistry major
— Rebecca Lynn Totten, Abita Springs and New Orleans, La., geology major
— Shuan Sheila Tsau, Lawrence, human biology and psychology major

Goldwater scholarships provide up to $7,500 for tuition, fees, books and room and board. Winners will be announced in late March or early April. Winners who will graduate in 2009 receive one year of support; those graduating in 2010 receive two years of support.

A total of 43 KU students have been selected for Goldwater scholarships since they were first awarded in 1989. Congress established the program in 1986 to pay tribute to the retired U.S. senator from Arizona and to ensure a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians and engineers.

Goldwater scholars have impressive academic qualifications that have garnered the attention of prestigious postgraduate fellowship programs. Nationally, recent Goldwater scholars have received 69 Rhodes scholarships, 86 Marshall awards and numerous other distinguished fellowships.

Only sophomores or juniors who plan to graduate in 2009 or 2010 and who were judged to have outstanding academic records, significant research experience and high potential for a research career in mathematics, the natural sciences or engineering were eligible for nomination by their universities. Nominees submitted applications that included an essay related to the nominee’s career and faculty recommendations.

Biographical information about KU’s nominees:

DOUGLAS COUNTY
From Lawrence
Shuan Sheila Tsau is preparing to attend medical school and ultimately plans to seek a doctoral degree in neuroscience or neurobiology. Her long-range goals include researching biological factors that contribute to and perpetuate psychological disorders. Tsau entered KU after completing a GED at age 16. Medical conditions, including an eating disorder, interrupted her conventional high school experience and influenced her interest in neuroscience. A faculty member who advised Tsau’s research in a four-week summer honors seminar during her freshman year described her writing and analytic skills as those of a master’s-level student. Tsau works as an assistant in the Steinmetz Neuroscience Lab at KU and has worked in a KU mycology lab. In addition, she works for KU Dining Services, where she has twice earned an employee of the year award. She was selected for University Scholars, KU’s mentoring program offered to 20 top sophomores annually, and received a Coca-Cola Scholarship. She is the daughter of Jyun-Syung Tsau and Flora Hsu.

ELLIS COUNTY
From Hays 67601
Rachel L. Debes is planning a career researching biostatistical applications in medical fields to improve the lives of others. One of her faculty advisers described Debes as a “skilled mathematical thinker” and as having “both an intuitive grasp of and a keen interest in biological questions.” This spring, Debes is in Hungary as part of the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program, a competitive, intense experience for undergraduate mathematics majors in the United States. She has been selected for a summer 2008 internship at a NASA facility as a scholar in the Motivating Undergraduates in Science and Technology program. Last fall, through her KU faculty mentor, Maria Orive, associate professor in ecology and evolutionary biology, who is on sabbatical at Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, Debes was invited to make a presentation in the lab of John Wakeley, professor of organismal and evolutionary biology at Harvard. During summer 2007, she attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison Summer Institute for Training in Biostatistics. At KU, she is preparing a research project involving population genetics with a doctoral student in Orive’s lab. Debes was selected for University Scholars, KU’s mentoring program offered to 20 top sophomores annually. She is a National Merit Scholar and a Dane G. Hansen Leaders of Tomorrow Achievement Award winner. She is the daughter of Ken and Debbie Debes and a graduate of Hays High School.

JOHNSON COUNTY
From Lenexa 66219
Thornton W. Thompson plans to earn a doctorate in cell biology in preparation for a career in biomedical research, particularly of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Thompson entered KU with the first Kansas Perfect Achievement Scholarship package offered for attaining perfect scores on both the ACT and SAT college entrance exams. One faculty adviser wrote, “A class full of Thorntons would be nirvana. You would have a group of truly brilliant students who felt no need to exhibit unnecessary bravado and who you knew were thinking carefully.” Last summer, Thompson was selected as a summer research intern in the pathology lab of Mark Greene, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. His contribution’s to Greene’s work has resulted in his being included among the authors of a journal article Greene is preparing. At KU, Thompson’s work as an undergraduate research assistant in the lab of David Davido, assistant professor of molecular biosciences, will be included in a manuscript that will be submitted for publication. He is a National Merit Scholar and was selected for University Scholars, KU’s mentoring program offered to 20 top sophomores annually. He is the son of Victoria Thompson and a graduate of Shawnee Mission West High School.

LOUISIANA
From Abita Springs 70420 and New Orleans
Rebecca Lynn Totten plans a career of research and teaching in paleontology and isotope geochemistry. One faculty member describes Totten’s passion for vertebrate paleontology and chemistry as “exactly what we need to produce the new breed of paleoenvironmental geoscientists who are capable of tackling those challenging scientific enigmas that have baffled traditional paleontologists and geochemists.” With two faculty mentors — Larry Martin, senior curator at KU’s Natural History Museum, and Luis Gonzalez, associate professor of geology — she is writing an interdisciplinary senior honors thesis examining the isotopic chemistry of Mosasaurs, large aquatic reptiles that swam in prehistoric seas that covered what is now Kansas and Nebraska. Totten is in her third year working as an assistant in the W.M. Keck Paleoenvironmental and Environmental Stable Isotope Laboratory, where she is a member of the Cretaceous research group. She has worked in Spain as a field assistant in research projects with experienced international petroleum geologists and in China, where she was the only undergraduate selected to participate. She was selected for University Scholars, KU’s mentoring program offered to 20 top sophomores annually. She is secretary of Sigma Gamma Epsilon geology honor society and a member of the Osage chapter of the Association of Women Geoscientists. She has a student pilot’s license and is a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association. Totten attributes her interest in science to seventh-grade project in which she investigated the loss of hearing in her left ear. Her project was one of 40 selected for the Discovery Young Scientist Challenge national science fair in Washington, D.C. The fair included a comparative fossil identification challenge that fascinated Totten long after she returned home. The fourth of six children who regard New Orleans as home, she is the daughter of Matthew and Iris Totten of Abita Springs, La., and Karen Parsons of New Orleans. She is a graduate of Fountainbleau High School in Mandeville, La.

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