Monthly Archives: March 2005

Barry Goldwater Scholarship

The 2005 Recipients of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship were released last week. There were 4 recipients from the University of Minnesota which is impressive because each institution can only nominate 4 students per year.

The 2005 Recipients from the U of M are:

  • Bradley M. Froehle (That’s me!)

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Major(s): Physics/Mathematics
Career Goal: Ph.D. in Physics/Condensed Matter. Conduct leading edge research in condensed matter physics and teach at the university level.

  • Loren Greenman

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Major(s): Chemistry/Chemical Engineering
Career Goal: Ph.D. in Chemistry. Conduct research in the area of computational chemistry at an academic institution or the industrial world.

  • Katie N. Lee

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Major(s): Biochemistry/Chemistry
Career Goal: M.D./Ph.D. in Cancer Research/Biochemistry/Pharmacology. Conduct research using new and established scientific concepts to investigate and translate basic science research into clinical solutions.

  • David P. Molitor

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Major(s): Mathematics/Physics
Career Goal: Ph.D. in Mathematics. Research mathematician in the field of combinatorics studying the applications of mathematics to physics and economics.

This scholarship is good for $7.5k/year for up to two years to cover Tuition, Fees, Textbooks, Room and Board.

Best humorous congratulations from a professor so far:

Brad,

Congratulations for the Scholarship. I guess you are not just sleeping in class. Yuichi

Coincidentally, David Molitor and I are going to be roommates during our class in Italy/Switzerland/France over May Session.

Durham & Boston

I just got back from the Women’s Hockey Frozen Four tournament held at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH. The Gophers won the national championship for the second consecutive year by beating Harvard 4-3.

I uploaded some pictures of Boston and Durham to Flickr. Enjoy.

3 Trips, 3 Weekends

This weekend will mark the 3rd consecutive weekend trip I’ve been on!

  • Chicago, Illinois: Visited Thursday thru Saturday for the Big 10 Men’s Basketball Tournament. I played in the pepband for the Gophers. We won our first game, but lost the second to Illinois.
  • South Bend, Indiana: Visited Notre Dame Wednesday thru Sunday to visit my girlfriend, Ann Marie. The trip went well. I especially enjoyed all the Irish flair on St. Patrick’s Day.
  • Durham, New Hampshire: Playing in the pepband for the Women’s Hockey Frozen Four. Go Gophers! We are flying out of Friday morning, returning Monday morning. I’ll let you know how it goes when I get back.

Putnam

The 2004 William Lowell Putnam was held on December 4, 2004. This year 3733 undergraduates representing 515 institutions participated. The test contains 12 problems and is given in two 3 hour segments. Each problem is worth a maximum of 10 points, resulting in 120 possible points. Most years the median score is very low, usually about 1 point.

Ten students participated at the University of Minnesota. Of these, 3 were selected before the competition to compete on behalf of the University in the team portion (calculated by summing the individual students’ scores).

2004 Team Members consisted of Matthew Korson, Derek Dalle, and myself. I haven’t heard how the team fared in the competition.

Personally I scored 46/120, placing me 122nd nationally.

This is up from last year’s performance, where I scored 30.3/120 and placed 200th. I definitely knew I did better than last year when I walked out of the test, but my feelings on the test’s difficulty still hold true.

Update: The University of Minnesota – Twin Cities team finished in 63rd place overall.