Physics major Sommers named Goldwater Scholar

Princeton junior Grace Sommers has been awarded a Goldwater Scholarship, an annual award for outstanding undergraduates interested in careers in mathematics, the natural sciences or engineering. 

Sommers, a physics major from Bridgewater, New Jersey, is also pursuing certificates in applications of computing, applied and computational math, and Roman language and culture. She previously won the Freshman First Honor Prize and the George B. Wood Legacy Sophomore Prize.

Sommers is planning to complete a Ph.D. in physics and then pursue a career in academia. Her mentors include Herman Verlinde, physics chair and the Class of 1909 Professor of Physics; Mariangela Lisanti, an assistant professor of physics; Branko Glišić, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering; Rebecca Napolitano, a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering; and Oren Slone, an associate research scholar, Princeton Center for Theoretical Science.

Goldwater Scholarships cover tuition, fees, room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year. Sommers is one of 496 scholarship winners selected from a field of 1,223 students nationwide. 

The scholarship program honoring Sen. Barry Goldwater was created as part of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, a federally endowed agency instituted by an act of Congress in 1986. Over the past 33 years, Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 92 Rhodes Scholarships, 137 Marshall Awards, 159 Churchill Scholarships, 104 Hertz Fellowships and numerous other distinguished awards.