BME undergrad wins 2022 Goldwater Scholarship

Biomedical engineering student Samuel Neuman is among four University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduates to receive a 2022 Barry Goldwater Scholarship, one of the most prestigious awards in the U.S. for undergraduates studying the sciences.

Neuman, a junior from DeForest, Wisconsin, is double majoring in biomedical engineering and biochemistry and plans to pursue an MD/PhD in biomedical engineering.

As a rising high school junior, Neuman spent a summer working in the lab of anesthesiology Professor Michael Perouansky. Since his freshman year, Neuman has worked in the Preclinical Parkinson’s Research Program under the direction of Professor Marina Emborg, where he studies various vehicles for delivering CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing reagents to the brain of multiple model organisms. The work has earned him authorship on an in-progress manuscript.

Neuman also received a Hilldale Undergraduate Research Fellowship to investigate the axonal transport of protein products following gene editing as a strategic neural-network therapy for Parkinson’s disease. This summer, Neuman will conduct research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Each university in the country may nominate up to four undergraduates for the annual award. To have all four candidates win is remarkable, says Julie Stubbs, director of UW’s Office of Undergraduate Academic Awards.

“I’m so proud of Lucy, Sarah, Elias and Samuel and all they’ve accomplished in their young academic careers,” Stubbs says. “These awards also reflect the strong emphasis this campus places on providing rich research opportunities for our undergraduates.”

The four UW–Madison students are among 417 Goldwater Scholars named this year out of 1,242 college sophomores and juniors nominated by 433 academic institutions. The scholarship program honors the late Sen. Barry Goldwater and is designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue research careers in the fields of the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics.

Goldwater Scholarships support undergraduates in the last two years of their bachelor’s degree programs. Sophomores receive up to $7,500 in each of the next two academic years. Juniors receive up to $7,500 for the senior year of study.

Photo caption: UW–Madison undergraduates Sarah Fahlberg, Samuel Neuman, Elias Kemna, and Lucy Steffes. Photo: Althea Dotzour, UW-Madison