Undergraduate Scholarships in Mathematics

Tam Thanh has been selected to receive the Mathematics Undergraduate Endowed Scholarship this year. Tam is a sixteen-year-old student from Puyallup, and took many college-level mathematics courses while still in high school. Tam joins previous winners Amanda Jane Geddes and Zachary Sanford, who continue to excel. The scholarship is made possible by an endowment established by Byron and Sheila Bishop.

Lukas Svec has been selected to receive the first Thomas Bleakney Endowed Scholarship in Mathematics. Lukas, also an Outstanding Winner and MAA Award recipient in the 2007 Mathematical Contest in Modeling, is a senior and double-major in Mathematics and Physics.

American Mathematical Society Recognizes Undergraduates

Susan Massey has won the Trjitzinsky Award of the American Mathematical Society. Six of these awards are given each year to mathematics students across the nation to assist them in pursuit of careers in mathematics.

A senior working toward her B.S. in mathematics, Susan spent the summer of 2007 working in the lab of Dr. Kristin Swanson developing a mathematical model of glioma (a type of brain tumor) genesis and evolution, through funding by the Amgen Scholars Foundation. This past winter she took care of her mother and ten-year-old brother during her mother’s bone marrow transplant, taking off only one quarter from school, so that she could stay in school to achieve her dream of being the first in her family to graduate from college. She continues to support her family as her mother is still unable to return to work. Susan aims to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. with a focus in neurology to research causes of and treatments for neurological diseases.

Nate Bottman won a Math in Moscow Scholarship Award from the American Mathematical Society, continuing in the tradition of previous winners Wes Essig, Justin Vincent (both 2006) and Noah Giansiracusa (2005). This scholarship helps to fund awardees’ study at the Independent University of Moscow, an institution specializing in research mathematics.

The Math in Moscow Scholarship is only one of the awards Nate has earned recently. In addition, Nate has won the UW Freshman Medal and was on one of the Outstanding Winner teams in the 2007 Mathematical Contest in Modeling. Most recently, in August he was named a Davidson Fellow, an award given to seventeen students across the country under the age of 18 for significant contributions in science, mathematics, technology, literature, and music.
(Photo by Kathy Sauber)