Jonsson School Undergrad Receives Goldwater Scholarship

Three University of Texas at Dallas undergraduates have been named recipients of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation Award.

Biomedical engineering senior Zachary Lee along with biochemistry senior Harish Suryadevara and neuroscience senior Jackson Trotter are among 437 new scholars chosen from 1,353 science, engineering and mathematics students nominated by 446 academic institutions for the scholarships, which provide up to $7,500 per academic year.

“Our scholars’ recognition by the Goldwater team once again reveals UTD to be one of the best universities in the nation for STEM students,” said Dr. Douglas Dow, associate dean of the Hobson Wildenthal Honors College who heads the Office of Distinguished Scholarships.

“Our undergraduates bring so much passion and creativity, along with a tremendous amount of hard work and dedication to their research. In turn, they are met with personal mentorship and professional opportunities, often resulting in opportunities to co-author conference papers and publications,” said Dow, who is also a clinical professor of political science in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences.

Lee, who grew up in an economically underserved area of Austin, is passionate about improving accessibility to health care. His current research focuses on electrochemical biosensors.

“A lot of diseases can be hard to diagnose, treat and track,” he said.

Electrochemical biosensors could provide more accessibility to treatment, especially in regions that do not have the infrastructure to deal with certain diseases, he said.

“Even though solutions for certain diseases might already exist, they’re not cost-effective for some regions of the world. Accessibility is a really big pillar of the work I hope to do in the future,” he said.

Lee has been working under the guidance of Dr. Shalini Prasad, professor and department head of bioengineering and the Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor in Systems Biology Science in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science and is a co-author on two papers on biosensors with Prasad.

“Zach is curious, committed and not afraid of failure,” she said. “All of this has held him in good stead as he has developed his research skills.”

Lee plans to pursue a PhD program “that really focuses on building foundational knowledge and pushing the frontier of our understanding of how certain cells interact with their environment to allow our nervous system to function,” he said.

A version of this story ran in News Center.