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UWG student named Goldwater Scholar
May 5, 2005
CARROLLTON, GA - Logan Leslie, a sophomore University of West Georgia chemistry major from Carrollton, has been named one of 320 students nationwide to receive a 2005-06 Goldwater Scholarship.
Leslie
is a student in the UWG Honors College with a 4.0 grade-point average.
His award marks the fifth time in the last seven years that a UWG Honors
student has received the prestigious Goldwater.
The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. It is awarded on the basis of academic merit by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program.
Established by Congress in 1986 in honor of Sen. Barry Goldwater, the program is designed to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields. Leslie plans to earn a doctorate in biochemistry and teach biochemistry at the research University level. He will spend this summer doing research at Stanford University with noted chemist Dr. Richard Zare, former chair of the National Board of Science and winner of the National Medal of Science.
At UWG, Leslie has performed research with Drs. John Hansen and Andrew Leavitt, associate professors of chemistry, and Dr. S. Swamy-Mruthinti, associate professor of biology. In both his freshman and sophomore years, he presented papers at the National Council on Undergraduate Research, and he is a contributor to a forthcoming article in the “Journal of Physical Chemistry.”
“Logan is among a handful of the very finest undergraduate students that I have known either here or at previous academic institutions that I have attended, which includes the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan,” said Hansen. “Logan’s research has provided much-needed insights into the processes that lead to protein aggregation, which result in diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and mad cow disease. Before he graduates from West Georgia, he will have several research articles published. He is undoubtedly on his way to becoming a world-class scientist.”
This year’s Goldwater Scholars were selected from a field of 1,091 sophomores and juniors nominated by U.S. colleges and universities. Other Georgia schools with Goldwater recipients this year were Berry College, Emory University (two recipients), Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia (two recipients).
Harvard, MIT, Princeton, the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, the University of Maryland-College Park and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill each had four recipients, the maximum allowed at any institution.
The one- and two-year Goldwater Scholarships cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year. In addition, Goldwater Scholars frequently are awarded prestigious post-graduate fellowships. Recent honorees have received 58 Rhodes Scholarships, 72 Marshall Awards (six of the 40 awarded in the United States in 2005), and numerous other fellowships.
Leslie already holds numerous scholarships, including the UWG Presidential Scholarship, and he is a member of the UWG chapter of the American Chemical Society. In 2004, he was named Outstanding Chemistry Freshman and Outstanding Honors College Freshman, and in 2005 he received the Analytic Chemistry Award and was named Outstanding Honors College Sophomore.
Dr. Donald Wagner, Honors College dean, said, “We knew when we recruited Logan that he was somewhat unique. He is not only one of the strongest students academically we have ever had in the natural sciences at West Georgia, he is also a member of our nationally competitive debate team. I cannot recall any other student with that combination of abilities, interests and skills. Almost all of our top debaters have been in the social sciences, business or mass communications.”
In addition to being a member of the debate team, Leslie is the first UWG student to hold statewide office in the Georgia Collegiate Honors Council. He is the student vice president, the highest office a student member can attain. He also tutors students in chemistry and calculus and volunteers with the Carroll County Humane Society at the local animal shelter.
Leslie said, “I turned down scholarships from Emory and Wake Forest, among other places, to attend West Georgia because it had the unique combination of strengths that married with my particular interests — a strong chemistry program with lots of opportunities for hands-on lab work and original research and a nationally recognized debate program.”
Previous UWG Goldwater recipients were Jason Hay, a physics major selected in 1999; Yong Suh, a chemistry major selected in 2000; Brian Bockelman, a mathematics major selected in 2003; and Toma Omonuwa, a chemistry major selected in 2004.
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