Two UF students named Goldwater Scholars

Award encourages students to pursue careers in mathematics, natural sciences or engineering

The Goldwater Foundation has announced that University of Florida students Hannah Lyons and William Owens have been selected for a Goldwater Scholarship. Lyons and Owens are among 496 students awarded Goldwater Scholarships for the 2019-2020 academic year. This year, 1,223 students from 443 academic institutions were nominated for the scholarship.

Lyons is a microbiology and cell sciences major, also majoring in history and minoring in French and francophone studies. For the last two years, Lyons has worked at the Florida Space Institute, where she assists scientists developing proposals for studies on resource utilization, human operations in harsh conditions, and space radiation effects on the central nervous system. She plans to pursue a career in space life sciences, with hopes of working at NASA as a physician-scientist to develop experiments that improve astronaut health and clinical practice on Earth.

Owens is a microbiology and computer science major, exploring the intersections between the two fields and conducts research in Professor Michael Kladde’s UF laboratory analyzing epigenetic data using UF’s supercomputer, HiPerGator. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in bioengineering and explore new ways to program cells and solve humanity’s problems.

The Goldwater Scholarship is the most prestigious undergraduate award in the fields of natural sciences, mathematics and engineering. It is awarded to students who demonstrate outstanding work in these areas and encourages them to continue their career paths.

Past Goldwater Scholars include other members of the UF Honors Program, Aaron Sandoval (2018, biology), Mihael Cudic (2017, electrical engineering), Tiffany Paul (2016, physics) and Colin Deant (2015, mathematics). For more information on the Goldwater Scholarship, visit https://goldwater.scholarsapply.org.