Below are the guidelines I provided to the departments for selecting the recipients of this scholarship. If you would like to make a donation to The George Washington University Physics or Chemistry department to further this scholarship fund, please contact us so we may forward you current contact information to the University.

Undergraduate Physics/Chemistry Summer Research Fellowship

This fellowship is being established to introduce Physics/Chemistry majors to research earlier than they may normally have started in their careers. The focus is to encourage students to seek out summer research with government agencies, such as NASA, that provide students with research fellowship opportunities at the undergraduate level later in their undergraduate years. The hope is that by having demonstrated research interests early they will more likely be selected for any fellowship that they apply for outside of The George Washington University. Additionally, this fellowship shall only be used for the summer break and not for research at any other time of the year, as to provide work experiences that will be related to their chosen career and encourage them to find summer work opportunities of the such rather than working the typical summer part-time job.

Specific requirements:

Declared Major in Physics/Chemistry : The reasoning is that there are some students that know what they will major in from the start and the goal of this fellowship is to allow these students the opportunities of research at the earliest time possible in their career.

GPA: While many judgements are based upon GPA, the goal of this fellowship is not to be awarded to the most gifted student, rather one who the department feels will benefit from this opportunity. The best reasoning I can give is the advice given to me my freshman year as I myself struggled with Physics, “It doesn't matter what grade you receive, rather it is more important to learn the material.” While these may not be the exact words from Professor Dhuga, they are the best that I remember them and have been my philosophy on learning.

Physics or Chemistry Summer Research: This is meant to encourage students to pursue worthwhile summer jobs. Many individuals I have worked with started their work experience in science with summer jobs doing research either at their school or agencies in their area. I would look down upon the research project being computer programming. This fellowship should be in support of giving students the opportunity for hands-on scientific research, not writing computer code. I believe there is enough overlap between these fields that even a purely chemistry experience is worthwhile to the physics major or vice-versa.

One Page Summary of what the student learned: I request this more to give the student a chance to reflect back on what they gained from the experience. This doesn't mean the student has to write about the research they did. If they learned about a particular instrument that a graduate student was using in their research on one day and found it was really interesting, they could write about that. The one page is a limit to distinguish this strictly from any scientific report that the departments might wish to require for any other monies the student may be receiving for summer research. I think this would be something that the departments would like to keep a copy to allow future students to view. I only request that a copy be sent to myself from the departments.

Reversed Preference: Freshman entering Sophomore year or Sophomore entering Junior year has preference over Junior entering Senior year. This is not to be given to any student who has started their fourth year. Rather than keep what I know some have expressed as too limiting, I won't stop this from being presented to a Junior going into their Senior year. However, I hope this will serve to remind the departments of the importance of having students get worthwhile summer jobs early on, rather than waiting until the end of their Junior year, is to me.

Additional guidelines:

While not specific requirements, these should help additionally to convey how I might personally determine the recipient. It is my feeling that these guidelines will help the department decide between candidates without leaning toward using GPA as a determining criterion or use any other condition that I would not feel appropriate.

Minority status: I don't believe any individual should be given preference because they are a “recognized” minority or on the basis of their gender. I feel the furthering of these practices is fundamentally flawed, as well as hypocritical to the fair and equal treatment to all. Please let your selection be as unbiased as the hands of a clock, not allowing the slightest amount of favoritism for one over another where you have used some quality of racial, ethnic, or gender a criterion in reaching your decision.

Physics and Chemistry double major: If there is a student who has shown interest in both of these fields by choosing a double major in them, I would ask the departments to discuss which of them would be the presenting department. This could even involve presenting the student with some choices of research in each department and letting them choose.