The Goldwater Scholarship Program, one of the oldest and most prestigious national scholarships in natural sciences, engineering and mathematics, selected Boise State honors students Pangaea Finn and Josue Torres-Fonseca as 2022 scholars. The program identifies and supports sophomores and juniors who show exceptional promise of becoming research leaders in these fields.
Finn, triple majoring in mathematics, physics, and music performance, hopes to pursue a career in biophysical research using physical and electrical methods to discover the microscopic biology of bilayer lipid membranes.
Torres-Fonseca is a computer science major who is passionate about natural language processing and spoken dialogue systems. Through his research, he hopes to create intelligent systems that enhance the lives of users who are deaf, blind or who have other disabilities.
Nine Boise State students – now including Finn and Torres- Fonseca – have received the Goldwater Scholarship since 1991.
David Shin (BA, economics, 2021) is the first Boise State student to become a Schwarzman Scholar since the program began in 2015. The program provides financial support to scholars from around the world to engage in a one-year master’s in global affairs at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. Shin was also a 2020 Truman Scholar and recently received a Hertog Foundation fellowship.
Finn, Torres-Fonseca and Shin are from Boise.