Class of 2018’s Top Scholars Earn Prestigious Scholarship Awards

Collage of headshots

Class of 2018’s Top Scholars Earn Prestigious Scholarship Awards

The University of Virginia’s Class of 2018 has distinguished itself in many ways, earning dozens of prestigious national and University-wide honors and scholarships. This year’s graduating class includes 12 Fulbright Scholars; two Marshall Scholars, three Beckman Scholars, a Truman Scholar, an Astronaut Scholar, five Critical Language Scholars, plus 235 Echols Scholars, 31 Jefferson Scholars, 34 Rodman Scholars and 17 College Science Scholars.

The graduating class also contains 53 Harrison Undergraduate Research Award winners, 49 Global Health Scholars, 39 Jefferson Public Citizen Award recipients, 29 Double-’Hoo Research Award recipients, 13 Community-Based Undergraduate Research Grants recipients and 10 University Awards for Projects in the Arts recipients.

Critical Language Scholars

The Critical Language Scholars program provides group-based, intensive and immersive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences. Participants, who are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers, hail from 49 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia and represent more than 200 institutions of higher education from across the United States. They spend seven to 10 weeks during the summer in intensive language institutes in one of 13 countries, studying languages the U.S. government has deemed “critical”: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Swahili, Turkish or Urdu.

UVA’s winners are:

  • Natalie Browning of Round Hill, who majored in South Asian studies with a minor in history, studied Urdu in Lucknow, India.
  • Trevor Shealy of Charlotte, North Carolina, a global development studies and Middle Eastern studies major, studied Persian in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
  • Margaret Turner of Stafford, a Middle Eastern studies major, studied Arabic in Ibri, Oman.
  • Khongorzul Khosbayar of Centreville, a foreign affairs and Russian/Eastern European studies major and a Slavic minor, studied Russian in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.
  • Isir Said of Centreville, a distinguished major in political and social thought and a history minor, studied Arabic in Amman, Jordan.

Boren Scholarships

The Boren Scholarships, an initiative of the National Security Education Program, provide funding opportunities for U.S. undergraduate students to study less-commonly taught languages in world regions that are critical to U.S. interests, but are underrepresented in study abroad, including Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

Dominick Giovanniello, a double-major in Middle Eastern language and literature and global security and justice, with a minor in French, studied Arabic for a year in Amman, Jordan, thanks to a Boren Scholarship.

Dominick Giovanniello headshot

Dominick Giovanniello wants to work in conflict resolution.

Giovanniello said he enjoys languages, particularly Arabic, and hopes to work on conflict resolution and political development in the Middle East.

“Study abroad is critically important in developing students able to thrive in the world ahead,” said Jeffrey W. Legro, former vice provost for global affairs. “Even better if they can immerse themselves in the language and society of a different culture for a semester or a year. Dominick’s success with the Boren Scholarship provides an opportunity to dig deep into how others think and act – the type of understanding that will serve him and the United States well.”

A graduate of James Madison High School in Vienna and an Echols Scholar, Giovanniello was a volunteer at Madison House and a research assistant at the UVA Initiative for Religion, Politics and Conflict.

Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Scholarships

UVA is one of 10 universities nationwide selected to award Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Scholarships, largely because of its commitment to quality undergraduate research. The grant, worth approximately $156,000, funds scholarships to two undergraduate researchers per year working in chemistry, biochemistry and the biological and medical sciences. The scholars are selected locally and the grants provide $21,000 in stipend and travel for two summers and one academic year. Each mentor receives an additional $5,000 to be used in direct support of their scholar.

“These are some of the highest awards in the nation for excellence in undergraduate research,” said William Guilford, director of UVA’s Beckman Scholars Program, director for educational innovations and undergraduate program director in biomedical engineering in the schools of Engineering and Medicine. “Our students always deliver exceptional research proposals, living up to Arnold Beckman’s guiding principle that ‘there is no satisfactory substitute for excellence.’ We are fortunate to have such incredibly hard-working undergraduate scientists at UVA, guided by such dedicated research mentors.”

There are three Beckman Scholars in the graduating class:

  • J.C. Panagides, of Sterling, a biomedical engineering major with a minor in applied mathematics.
  • Ana Untaroiu of Charlottesville, a biomedical engineering major.
  • Lucy Jin of Yorktown, a distinguished major in neuroscience.

Untaroiu worked in biomedical engineering professor Jason Papin’s computational systems biology laboratory and assistant biology professor Jennifer Güler’s malaria laboratory, which focuses on the human-infective malaria parasite.

“She uses RNA sequencing and computational biology to understand how the parasite that causes malaria evolves to become resistant to drugs,” Guilford said. “This improved understanding will help design new drugs and new multi-drug regimens for the treatment of this disease which causes nearly half a million deaths each year. 

“If successful, her work will shed light on movement disorders that come to afflict up to a quarter of the world’s population as people age,” such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, Guilford said.

Untaroiu, a member of the Raven Society, served on the Raven Council. She was a Madison House volunteer, a teaching assistant for “Introduction to Engineering” and a student volunteer for Hospice of Piedmont. She presented work from her Beckman project at multiple national conferences and is preparing a manuscript for publication.

A graduate of Charlottesville High School, Untaroiu plans on pursuing a medical degree.

Lucy Jin headshot

Lucy Jin explores tumor necrosis.

Jin’s research in associate biology professor Christopher Deppmann’s developmental neuroscience laboratory examined the role of destructive cues in the early development of sensory systems – specifically, how members of the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily, through destructive signaling, shape the proprioceptive system, a sensory system required for knowing the relative position of body parts in space.

Jin, a graduate of Tabb High School in Yorktown and an Echols Scholar, has received the Harrison Undergraduate Research Award and the Double-’Hoo Research Grant, and is a member of the Raven Society. She volunteered in the emergency department at the UVA Medical Center; played piano in the hospital lobby; was a grader for a course on cell signaling, was a language consultant and ESL assistant for the Volunteers with International Students, Staff, and Scholars program; managed the website for the Deppmann lab; and served as an executive board member of UNICEF. She plans to pursue an M.D. in the hopes of becoming a physician-scientist.

J.C. Panagides headshot

J.C. Panagides battles microbes with silver.

Panagides, of Sterling, used the Beckman Scholarship to explore using silver as a tool in fighting microbes, combating the complex biological phenomenon of antibiotic resistance. He hopes his research will start a lifelong career in pathology.

“I spent nearly two months in the rural South African community of Hammanskraal helping to implement a silver-nanoparticle-based water treatment facility that relies on the ability of silver to selectively destroy the molecular metabolism of harmful waterborne pathogens,” he said. “After returning to the U.S., I delved into the literature surrounding silver as a therapeutic agent for a variety of bacteria and formed the hypothesis that it might be a valuable tool to combat microbes that have already developed a resistance to traditional antibiotics.”

Panagides, a Rodman Scholar, received Intermediate Honors, a Robert and Eileen Honse Engineering Scholarship, SEAS Class of 1986 Scholarship, a Community-Based Undergraduate Research Grant, a Center for Global Health Travel Grant and a Green Initiatives Funding Tomorrow Grant. He applied in 2016 for a provisional patent application for a project pursued in the Computational Systems Biology Laboratory. He is a 2018 Engineering Student of the Year, a member of the Raven Society and the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, and an international researcher with the not-for-profit PureMadi, an organization founded by civil and environmental engineering professor Jim Smith.

Panagides was a teaching assistant in courses on differential equations and on probability and statistical programming, a volunteer emergency medical technician at Stony Point Volunteer Fire Company and a medical scribe in the UVA Health System’s Department of Emergency Medicine. He was a research editor for Spectra, the Undergraduate Journal of Engineering and Science; a National Institutes of Health summer research fellow; and participated in the National Ocean Sciences Bowl and TEDxUVA.

A graduate of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Panagides plans to use his laboratory training and engineering mindset to create effective clinical tools from emergent pathological knowledge.

Goldwater Scholarship

The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by Congress in 1986 to honor Sen. Barry Goldwater, who served his country for 56 years as a soldier and statesman, including 30 years in the U.S. Senate. The purpose of the foundation is to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue research careers in these fields.

Bridget Andersen of Great Falls, a distinguished major in astrophysics and computer science double major, worked with UVA professor Craig Sarazin on an analysis of the X-ray emissions from a galaxy cluster, Abell 3653. Clusters consist of thousands of galaxies surrounded by extremely hot intergalactic gas that emits in the X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The Abell 3653 cluster has characteristics that seem to contradict current theories for galaxy formation within clusters. 

Bridget Andersen headshot

Bridget Andersen combines astrophysics and computer science.

“In my research with Professor Sarazin, I have conducted a comprehensive analysis of the X-ray emission from Abell 3653, revealing previously undiscovered evidence that Abell 3653 is actually multiple clusters merging together into one,” Andersen said.

Andersen said she was thrilled to be exploring the fundamental questions of the universe.

“The extreme environments found in space provide spectacular laboratories for probing and answering questions about the cosmos,” Andersen said. “In particular, galaxy clusters and their mergers are some of the largest, most energetic laboratories in the universe. I find these enormous structures fascinating because they allow us to study a plethora of fundamental physical and astronomical phenomena, ranging from dark matter to plasma physics to galaxy evolution.”

An Echols Scholar and a College Science Scholar, Andersen was an executive board member of the Astronomy Club and a member of the Society of Physics Students; and the Sigma Pi Sigma Physics Honor Society. A graduate of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in astrophysics and conduct astronomical research at a university or national institute.

Astronaut Scholar

The Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, created by the six surviving Mercury 7 astronauts and others more than 30 years ago, supports top scholars in science, technology, engineering and mathematics while commemorating the legacy of America’s pioneering astronauts.

Steven Stetzler asks big questions such as “What is the universe made of?” and “Why is the universe the way it is?”

Stetzler, of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, a distinguished major in physics and computer science double-major, received a scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation to help him seek answers to his questions.

Steven Stetzler headshot

Steven Stetzler asks big questions about the nature of the universe.

 “My research interests lie at the intersection of physics and computing, which has led me to the fields of high-energy physics and astrophysics,” he said. “High-energy physics is the study of phenomena on extremely small scales, and astrophysics is the study of phenomena on enormously large scales. I want to work in these two fields because they address the questions important to me, and both fields have really interesting computational problems that need to be solved, intersecting neatly with my interest in computer science.”

Stetzler enjoys merging physics and computing, and has performed research on the Mu2e experiment, which he described as “an experiment dedicated to pushing fundamental particle physics beyond the standard model.” Last summer, he worked at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Very Large Array in New Mexico, studying the population of binary pulsars, which he thinks are the most fascinating objects in the sky.

“In the future, I hope to exist at the boundary between my two loves: physics and technology,” he said.

Stetzler is a member of the Raven Society, the Sigma Pi Sigma Physics Honor Society, the Society of Physics Students, the WXTJ student radio station and the Quest Scholars at UVA. He received a Deaver Scholarship from UVA’s Department of Physics and a Science Systems and Applications Inc. Academic Scholarship from the Society of Physics Students. A graduate of Kutztown Area High School, he plans to pursue a Ph.D. in astronomy.

“I think I would enjoy working as a researcher doing the fundamental science that I love for as long as possible at a university or a national lab,” he said.

Marshall Scholars

Marshall Scholarships, which finance American students studying in the United Kingdom, cover university fees, cost-of-living expenses, annual book grants, thesis grants, research and daily travel grants, as well as fares to and from the United States. Regional committees of British consular personnel and former Marshall Scholars select up to 40 scholars each year to study at graduate level at a United Kingdom institution in any field of study. The scholarships are largely funded by the British government.

Two scholars with ties to the University’s political and social thought program earned Marshall Scholarships, paying their way for graduate study in the United Kingdom.

  • Attiya Latif, a distinguished major in political and social thought, will pursue a master’s degree in women’s studies at the University of Oxford and a master’s degree in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Edinburgh.
  • Jack Chellman, a double-major in English and a distinguished major in political and social thought, will pursue a master’s degree in media, power and public affairs at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a master’s degree in ideology and discourse analysis from the University of Essex.

Latif is a social activist and an advocate for the legal rights of Muslim women. She received the 2017 John T. Casteen III Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Leadership Award, organized UVA’s “Eliminate the Hate” campaign, spearheaded events such as a teach-in to educate faculty members on the experiences of minority students and chaired the Minority Rights Coalition. She helped organize rallies supporting Muslim, immigrant and international student rights in response to President Trump’s efforts to block travelers from seven countries from entering the United States.

“The Marshall Scholarship will give me the opportunity to further a nuanced understanding of the political and historical context in which Islam exists, and give me the opportunity to study women’s rights in Islam,” she said.

She said the United Kingdom has much to offer academically. “I was really interested in the prospect of studying in a country with such high rates of immigration and such high rates of violence against migrant women,” she said. “I was also passionate about the idea of studying at places with such excellent resources, such as University of Edinburgh or Oxford.”

A Lawn resident, Latif will graduate Phi Beta Kappa. She has received a Harry S. Truman Foundation Scholarship, a Jefferson Scholarship and the Silver Award from UVA’s Chapter of Senoritas Latinas Unidad Sorority Inc., which recognizes excellence in advocacy and efforts toward inclusion for marginalized students on Grounds.

Latif was student director of the Multicultural Student Center, represented the College of Arts & Sciences on UVA’s Honor Committee and is a member of the Raven Society. She brought the annual World Hijab Day to UVA in her first year on Grounds to educate fellow students about Muslim women’s experiences with prejudice and violence. A Meriwether Lewis Fellow, she received a Harrison Undergraduate Research Grant and has conducted research on the intersectional experiences of Muslim women and best legal advocacy practices by non-governmental organizations. She served as an ambassador for the Middle Eastern Leadership Council, the public relations and marketing director of PULSE, and a Sustained Dialogue moderator. She writes regularly for the Huffington Post.

Chellman, who is in the area program in literary prose within the English major, is writing his political and social thought thesis on the relationship between James Joyce’s book, “Finnegan’s Wake,” and feminist theories of anti-patriarchal language.

He said he sees advantages to studying in the United Kingdom at this moment in history. “Studying in the U.K. would be particularly relevant for my interest in political divisions,” he said. “The post-Brexit political debates in the U.K. have a lot to teach Americans about how we should engage in constructive conversations.”

Jack Chellman headshot

Jack Chellman is exploring “Finnegan’s Wake” and feminist theories of anti-patriarchal language.

Chellman said he wants to combine his interests in literature with his appreciation of politics.

“I hope to be a journalist focusing on long-form content that uses narrative to address political divisions in the United States and United Kingdom,” he said. “I’m committed to building bridges between divided communities, and I believe literary journalism has a unique ability to develop empathy in an age of political polarization.

“My studies of journalism and discourse analysis through the Marshall Scholarship will make my future writing more effective. At Royal Holloway, I’ll be studying the world of new political communication and how we can use writing to change people’s opinions in an age of increasing polarization. At Essex, I’ll study the politicization of identity politics and learn to write about social identities in a productive and unifying way.”

Chellman was a Jefferson Scholar and an Echols Scholar, and received a Wagenheim Scholarship for English majors. A Lawn resident, he is a member of the Raven Society and has received two Jefferson Trust Grants, a Harrison Undergraduate Research Award and a Raven Society Fellowship. He has been a volunteer for Madison House and UVA’s LGBTQ Center.

He is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Q* Anthology of Queer Culture; former president of the Queer Student Union; former president of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society; founder and director of the Jefferson Society Archives Project, which seeks to organize and digitize the archival collection of UVA’s oldest student group; and vice chair of the “Unpacking Privilege” training program for the Minority Rights Coalition, running the organization’s multicultural training program.

Media Contact

Matt Kelly

Office of University Communications