埃默里大学大三学生朱莉安娜·克鲁兹和萨特维克·埃拉亚瓦利获得了2024年金水奖学金，这是美国数学、自然科学和工程专业本科生的最高奖学金。 --kay hinton照片，emory照片/视频。 有兴趣了解更多关于金水奖学金和其他著名奖项的学生应预约并通过学院联系注册活动。 通过国家奖学金和研究金项目网站查找更多信息。 埃默里文理学院的两名杰出本科生被评为2024年度金水学者，这是美国为数学、自然科学和工程学生提供的首要奖学金。 朱莉安娜·克鲁兹（juliannacruz）和萨特维克·埃拉亚瓦利（satvik elayavalli。 获奖者代表了确保u。 s。 美国国防部表示，保持全球竞争力和安全。 s。 国防部国防教育项目，与金水基金会合作获得该奖项。 cruz和elayavalli都探索了广泛的课程和研究经验，使他们能够在实验室做出重大贡献，并就他们的研究撰写或与他人合著论文。 自1986年美国国会授予该奖学金以来，他们与之前49位emory获奖者一起获得了该奖学金。 埃默里学院院长barbara kraustamer说：“julianna和satvik体现了运用文科拥抱发现、改变世界的理想。”。 “我们为他们当之无愧地成为埃默里最新的金水学者而感到无比自豪。 朱莉安娜·克鲁兹在得克萨斯州成长为墨西哥移民的女儿，她梦想成为一名医生，了解人口结构如何影响健康，尤其是在弱势社区。 研究机会首先吓倒了克鲁兹，他也是一名questbridge学者。 相反，她专注于通过面向第一代学生的定向项目emoryfirststem建立联系，并对广泛的课程进行抽样。 克鲁兹还投入到服务工作中，帮助没有食物保障的埃默里大学学生和教职员工放慢食品包装并每周送餐。 她还自愿在当地诊所担任医疗翻译，并在亚特兰大西部的一家慈善医疗中心担任医疗助理。 在埃默里大学的第一年结束时，她决定攻读人类学、人类生物学和西班牙语/葡萄牙语的双专业，这将为她渴望的跨学科学习奠定一个稳固的医学预科基础。 然而，直到去年，在firststem导师的鼓励下，她才成功申请成为宾夕法尼亚大学竞争性本科生临床学者项目的研究助理。 考虑到9周的短时间，主管jordanacohen预计cruz只会完成研究中的第一步分析，以确定动脉硬化是否是慢性肾脏病患者心脏事件的早期预警信号。 克鲁兹在一周内完成了第一批工作，这促使科恩让她负责整个研究。 cruz建立的模型显示，这些患者的大动脉硬化和心律失常之间存在明显的联系。 cruz将在阿根廷举行的世界肾脏病大会上向来自世界各地的医生介绍这一结果，该结果具有直接的临床意义。 她还将成为即将发表的一篇关于这项研究的论文的第一作者。 宾夕法尼亚大学肾脏病学家、医学和流行病学副教授cohen说：“因为julianna对自己正在做的工作思考得很深，也很关心这个群体，我认为她的工作会帮助很多人。”。 自去年秋天以来，cruz分析了针对慢性肾脏病患者的额外非药物干预措施，在埃默里大学医学院jeaniepark医生的人体综合生理学实验室研究了基于正念的减压冥想的效果。 她计划今年夏天继续这项工作，届时她将开始为她的荣誉论文招募患有慢性肾脏疾病的latinx患者。 对于该项目，cruz将进行访谈，研究种族和公民身份等因素如何影响人们对医疗保健和生物医学研究的看法。 克鲁兹将兼顾这项工作，同时也将于明年秋天开始一个全球公共卫生项目，届时她将与国际培训学校一起前往印度、南非和阿根廷。 她还将准备申请联合医学博士/博士项目，这是金水奖学金使之成为可能的职业道路。 cruz说：“我当时在想，我应该只从事医学，因为作为第一代和低收入人群，这将更快地带来更多的稳定性。”。 “我非常感谢goldwater，因为它肯定了如果我在研究中也将患者的叙述置于背景中，从长远来看，我可以帮助我的家人和成千上万的人。 satvik elayavallielayawalli来到埃默里时确信一件事：他想尽可能避免写长文。 化学专业似乎符合要求，并为研究和医学院提供了一条前进的道路。 在埃默里大学的第一年秋天，他在生物学家安妮塔·科贝特的实验室找到了一个本科生研究职位。 elayavalli与另一名学生一起进行了基因筛选，试图利用出芽酵母模型来识别致癌基因的抑制因子。 他在暑期本科生研究经验项目中继续担任这一角色，在10周内每天8小时将基因插入突变的酵母细胞。 当他向科贝特承认他不喜欢工作的压力和重复性时，她建议他转向分析与珍妮弗·斯潘格尔在埃默里的winship癌症研究所的实验室合作产生的rna序列数据。 当时，两个实验室都没有人能做这项工作。 elayavalli将数值分析和数值优化列为他迄今为止最喜欢的课程，他通过观看视频教程和在线阅读代码文档来自学分析所需的计算技能。 他帮助开发了成功表征一种特定突变的代码，并为他赢得了一份正在为《癌症杂志》修订的手稿的合作作者。 此后，埃拉亚瓦利宣布攻读应用数学和统计学专业，并正在攻读研究生水平的数学课程。 他计划攻读应用数学博士学位，现在他确信自己的专长是在肿瘤学研究中具有现实影响的计算研究。 塞缪尔坎德尔多布斯生物学教授、埃默里学院研究高级副院长科贝特说：“弄清楚你不想做什么是非常有价值的。”。 “因为他善于自我反思，satvik现在正处于优化系统和开发癌症下一阶段研究所需方法的前沿。 “elayavalli对科学的基本理解帮助他在去年夏天的麻省理工学院获得了计算研究的职位。 英语字母表的第4个字母。 休斯敦安德森癌症中心。 作为陈生物信息学实验室的一部分，他的主要工作是开发单细胞rna测序数据的模拟，但他也自愿帮助另一位研究人员进行另一个项目的统计测试。 与这两个项目相关的出版物即将出版，elayavalli是合著者。 他将应用机器学习来发现分析医学图像的新方法，为他的荣誉论文做准备。 这项工作将由卫生研究所emory移情人工智能执行主任anant madabhushi和robert w共同完成。 这项工作将由卫生研究所emory移情人工智能执行主任anant madabhushi和robert w共同完成。 elayavalli还计划继续辅导数学和英语，作为emory阅读的一部分，并在幕后帮助emory作曲家协会，这是施瓦茨表演艺术中心两年工作音乐会的成果。 尽管埃拉亚瓦利上一次演奏独奏会是在大二的时候，但他也计划报名参加钢琴课程，直到毕业，既是一种减压，也是一种挑战。 elayavalli说：“我认为我喜欢数学和这方面的职业前景的原因和钢琴是一样的。”。 “两者都是在解决谜题，你必须弄清楚为什么出了问题，或者什么会以你需要的特定方式产生输出。 能因此赢得金水奖真是令人欣慰。 ”。
emory college juniors julianna cruz and satvik elayavalli are recipients of the 2024 goldwater scholarship, the nation’s top scholarship for undergraduates in math, natural sciences and engineering.— photo by kay hinton, emory photo/video.students interested in learning more about goldwater scholarships and other prestigious awards should schedule an appointment and register for events through college connect.find more information through the national scholarships and fellowships program website.two exceptional undergraduate researchers in emory college of arts and sciences have been named 2024 goldwater scholars, the nation’s premier scholarship for students of math, the natural sciences and engineering.juniors julianna cruz and satvik elayavalli are among 508 undergraduate scholars selected nationwide for this year’s award, which comes with $7,500 annually toward the cost of their undergraduate degrees.recipients represent the scientific talent needed to ensure the u.s. maintains global competitiveness and security, according to the u.s. department of defense national defense education programs, which partners with the goldwater foundation for the award.both cruz and elayavalli have explored wide-ranging coursework and research experiences that allowed them to make significant contributions in the lab and write or co-author papers on their research. they join 49 previous emory recipients of the scholarship since congress endowed it in 1986.“julianna and satvik embody the ideal of applying the liberal arts to embrace discovery and make a difference in the world,” says emory college dean barbara krauthamer. “we are incredibly proud of their well-deserved recognition as emory’s latest goldwater scholars.” julianna cruzgrowing up as the daughter of mexican immigrants in texas, cruz dreamed of becoming a doctor who understands how demographics affect health, especially in vulnerable communities.research opportunities first intimidated cruz, who is also a questbridge scholar. she focused instead on building connections through emory firststem, the orientation program for first-generation students, and sampling broad coursework.cruz also dove into service work, helping slow food pack and deliver weekly meals to food-insecure emory students and staff. she also volunteered as a medical interpreter at local clinics and a medical assistant at a charitable health care center in west atlanta.by the end of her first year at emory, she decided a double major in anthropology and human biology and spanish/portuguese would build a secure pre-med foundation with the interdisciplinary study she craved.still, it was not until last year, with encouragement from a firststem mentor, that she successfully applied to become a research assistant in the competitive undergraduate clinical scholars program at the university of pennsylvania. given the short, nine-week timeframe, supervisor jordana cohen expected cruz would complete only the first step of analyses in a study to determine whether arterial stiffness could be an early warning sign of cardiac events in patients with chronic kidney disease.cruz finished the first batch of work in a week, prompting cohen to let her run the entire study. the models cruz built showed a clear link between large-artery stiffness and abnormal heart rhythm in those patients.the results have immediate clinical implications, which cruz will present to doctors from around the world at the world congress of nephrology in argentina. she will also be first author on an upcoming paper about the research.“because she thinks so deeply about the work she is doing and cares so much about this population, i think julianna is going to help a lot of people with her work,” says cohen, a nephrologist and associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at penn.since last fall, cruz has analyzed additional non-pharmaceutical interventions for patients with chronic kidney disease, studying the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (mbsr) meditation in physician jeanie park’s human integrative physiology lab at the emory university school of medicine.she plans to continue that work this summer, when she will begin recruiting latinx patients with chronic kidney disease for her honors thesis. for that project, cruz will conduct interviews to examine how factors such as ethnicity and citizenship status affect views on health care and biomedical research.cruz will juggle that work while also embarking on a global public health project next fall, when she will travel to india, south africa and argentina with the school for international training. she also will be readying her applications for a joint md/phd program, a career path the goldwater scholarship makes possible.“i was in the midst of thinking that i should proceed with just medicine, because being first-gen and low-income, it would bring more stability faster,” cruz says. “i’m so grateful for the goldwater because it affirms that i can help my family and thousands more people in the long run if i also contextualize patient narratives in research.” satvik elayavallielayavalli arrived at emory certain of one thing: he wanted to avoid writing long essays as much as possible.a major in chemistry seemed to fit the bill and provide a path forward to research and possibly medical school. in the fall of his first year at emory, he found an undergraduate research role in biologist anita corbett’s lab.paired with another student, elayavalli conducted genetic screenings, trying to identify suppressors of cancer-causing genes using a budding yeast model. he continued in the role during the summer undergraduate research experience (sure) program, inserting genes into mutated yeast cells eight hours a day for 10 weeks.when he confessed to corbett that he didn’t enjoy the pressure and repetitive nature of the work, she suggested he pivot to analyzing rna-sequencing data generated in collaboration with jennifer spangle’s lab in emory’s winship cancer institute. at the time, no one in either lab could do that work.elayavalli, who cites numerical analysis and numerical optimization as his favorite courses so far, taught himself the computational skills required for that analysis by watching video tutorials and reading code documentation online.he helped develop code that successfully characterized a specific mutation, earning him co-authorship on a manuscript under revision for the journal nar cancer.elayavalli has since declared a major in applied mathematics and statistics and is taking graduate-level math courses. he plans to pursue a phd in applied math, certain now that his niche lies in computational research with real-world impact in oncology research.“figuring out what you don’t want to do is incredibly valuable,” says corbett, samuel candler dobbs professor of biology and emory college senior associate dean for research. “because he was self-reflective, satvik is now on the cutting edge of optimizing systems and developing the methods needed for the next stage of cancer research.”elayavalli’s foundational understanding of the science helped him secure a computational research role last summer at the m.d. anderson cancer center in houston. his primary work was developing a simulation for single-cell rna-sequencing data as part of ken chen’s bioinformatics lab, but he also volunteered to help another researcher with statistical tests on a different project. publications related to both projects are forthcoming, with elayavalli as co-author.he will apply machine learning to discover new methods to analyze medical images for his honors thesis. the work will be conducted with anant madabhushi, executive director of the emory empathetic ai for health institute and the robert w. woodruff professor of biomedical engineering at emory university and georgia institute of technology.elayavalli also plans to continue tutoring math and english as part of emory reads and helping behind the scenes with the emory composers society, an outgrowth of working concerts at the schwartz center for performing arts for two years.though he last performed a recital as a sophomore, elayavalli also plans to enroll in piano courses until graduation, both as a stress reliever and a challenge.“i think the reason i like math and the prospect of a career in this area is the same as piano,” elayavalli says. “both are solving puzzles where you have to figure out why something is going wrong or what will create an output in the specific way you need. it’s very gratifying to win the goldwater for that.”.
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