Stephen Randall and Noah Roth Mandell have been awarded scholarships by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, which encourages students to pursue advanced study and careers in the sciences, engineering and mathematics.

Randall is a double major in physics and mathematics and plans to pursue a doctorate in theoretical physics. Mandell plans to pursue a Ph.D. in physics.

The Goldwater Scholarship program was created in 1986 to identify students of outstanding ability and promise in science, engineering and mathematics, and to engage their pursuit of advanced study and research careers. The University of Maryland had three Goldwater winners this year and 44 total since its inception 27 years ago.

Sankar Das Sarma (left) and Jordan Goodman (right) have been selected to receive CMNS Board of Visitors Awards, established and funded by the Board to acknowledge the accomplishments of our faculty and students.

Professor Das Sarma, the Richard E. Prange Chair in Physics, is a Distinguished University Professor, a fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute, and the director of the Condensed Matter Theory Center. He will receive the Distinguished Faculty Award in recognition of his stellar career and of recent achievements in topological qubits and predictions of Majorana fermions in superconductors. In 2008, he won the Kirwan Faculty Research Prize for his groundbreaking work in quantum computing, particularly interactions of quasiparticles that--at a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero and in the presence of a strong magnetic field--create patterns that could allow nearly error-free computing of immense speed and capacity.

Professor Goodman will receive the Board of Visitors Creative Educator Award, in recognition of his long contributions to our education mission and his innovative spirit in developing new courses. Most recently, he conceived of an advanced honors seminar that would blend science, technology, and public policy; it was first offered this fall as HONR378N, Research in Science and Public Policy for the U.S. National Security Agency. He is a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, a college Distinguished Alumnus, a recipient of the Kirwan Undergraduate Education Award and the UMD President's Medal. A particle astrophysicist, he is the Principal Investigator for the HAWC Gamma Ray Observatory in Santa Negra, Mexico. He currently chairs the University Research Council.

The 2013 CMNS Board of Visitors Awards will be presented at this year's Academic Festival. At that event, other CMNS Awards will be given, including the 2013 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award to Rashmish Mishra, a graduate student in the Maryland Center for Theoretical Physics.

Please attend the Academic Festival on May 10, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. in the G. Forrest Woods Atrium of the Chemistry Building.