Three University students have won prestigious national scholarships that recognize their outstanding academic work and support their continuing studies.

Ming-Jay Shiao, EG ’06, was named a 2006 Truman Scholar, becoming the sixth UD student to win the award in the last five years. The electrical engineering major was among 75 students from 63 U.S. colleges and universities who received the award May 21 at the Truman Library in Independence, Mo.

Tapan Patel and Wen Allen Tseng, both AS ’07, were awarded 2006-07 academic year scholarships by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. Patel, a biochemistry and mathematics major, and Tseng, a biological sciences major, both are planning to pursue doctoral degrees after graduating from UD.

Truman Scholar

The Truman Scholarship provides $30,000 for graduate study. Scholars also receive priority admission and supplemental financial aid at some premier graduate institutions, leadership training, career and graduate school counseling and special internship opportunities within the federal government. Recipients must be U.S. citizens, have outstanding leadership potential and communication skills, be in the top quarter of their class and be committed to careers in government or the not-for-profit sector.

“I was absolutely overwhelmed and shocked when I heard that I had won,” Shiao says. “The Truman scholarship had been on my mind for a long time. I was hopeful, but the competitive nature of the scholarship is daunting. I’m still pleasantly surprised, in awe, and very thankful for all the guidance from my advisers, faculty, family and friends.”

Driven by his experience as a volunteer in impoverished communities in South Africa, Shiao says he is planning to study energy and environmental policy in graduate school, so that he can pursue his interest in the implementation of renewable energy technologies in less-developed regions of the world.

“Two billion people worldwide are without reliable electricity,” Shiao says. “Renewable sources of energy, especially solar technologies, provide a solution that can raise the standard of health and education in these areas. Yet, many policymakers are misinformed about the current and potential state of these technologies. I hope that my technical background in electrical engineering and my desire to influence policy will bridge the gap between technical research and social implementation.”

Katharine Kerrane, senior associate director of UD’s Honors Program, calls Shiao “a very impressive student” who combines substantial technical know-how in electrical engineering and solar cell technology with public policy interests.

The Goldwater scholarship program, honoring the late senator, is designed to encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship, the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields, covers the cost of tuition, fees, books and room and board up to $7,500 per year.

Tseng, who is pursuing minors in biochemistry and biochemical engineering, says he is planning to earn a doctoral degree, so that he can become a professor and run his own research lab.

“I think that the Goldwater Scholarship will definitely help me with those aims, because it shows that many people already see a great deal of potential in me as a scientific researcher,” Tseng says. He is studying the signaling mechanism of a protein known as junctional adhesion molecule A in a process called angiogenesis, which is the formation and growth of new blood vessels. The research has a number of potential biomedical applications, including the treatment of cardiovascular diseases and cancer, because new blood vessels must be formed in order for a solid tumor to get access to enough oxygen and nutrients to sustain its growth.

Patel, who also is studying for minors in computer science, biochemical engineering, biology and philosophy, says he will pursue a doctoral degree in computational neuroscience or a related field, such as systems biology. He is researching lens development, particularly the significance of a pair of interacting proteins (Prox1 and sc35) that are highly expressed in the lens and are important for its development.

“In the past hundred years or so, biologists have focused on functions of particular proteins or enzymatic pathways and have generated tremendous amount of data that are rather disconnected,” Patel says. “Systems biology, and computational biology in general, tries to assemble a big picture from the small details that biologists have come up with. This ambitious task requires work at the interface of biology, chemistry, math and computer science. It is this interdisciplinary work that sparked a real interest in me to pursue it as a career.”

Goldwater Scholars’ impressive academic qualifications have garnered the attention of prestigious postgraduate fellowship programs. Recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 63 Rhodes Scholarships, 72 Marshall Awards (five of the 42 awarded in the United States in 2006) and many other distinguished fellowships.

—Martin Mbugua