Hope College sophomore Jason Gombas of Fort Wayne, Indiana, has received honorable mention recognition from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.
Hope students have received either scholarships or honorable mention through the highly competitive program every year for more than a decade. Gombas was among 307 applicants to receive honorable mention this year.
The scholarship recipients and honorable mention designees are undergraduate sophomores and juniors from throughout the United States. They were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,286 natural sciences, mathematics and engineering students nominated by the campus representatives from among 2,000 colleges and universities nationwide. The foundation awarded 240 scholarships for the 2017-18 academic year.
Gombas is majoring in physics and is interested in pursuing a doctorate in nuclear physics after Hope and conducting research at the university level or with a governmental research program. He has been conducting research in nuclear physics since his freshman year with Dr. Paul DeYoung, who is the Kenneth G. Herrick Professor of Physics at Hope.
His activities at the college have also included participating in the Phelps Scholars Program, a freshman-year residential initiative in which students explore topics related to diversity. He is a 2015 graduate of Carroll High School in Fort Wayne.
The Goldwater Foundation is a federally endowed agency established by Public Law 99-661 on November 14, 1986. The Scholarship Program honoring Senator Barry Goldwater was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields. Since its first award in 1989, the foundation has bestowed 7,921 scholarships worth approximately $63 million.