Undergraduates honored for their academic achievement and service
Twenty outstanding undergraduates have received the Jacob Van Ek scholarship, one of the College of Arts and Sciences’ highest honors.
The award recognizes exceptional undergraduates who excel in their academics and meaningfully contribute to the University of Colorado Boulder and the community. Faculty mentors nominate applicants on the basis of GPA and students’ depth of service.
Finalists for this year’s award were chosen by a five-person selection committee from a pool of 38 applicants.
“The student recipients of this year's Van Ek Award are academically high-achieving and committed to an impressive and constantly expanding range of service to their academic departments, to the university, to the state of Colorado, to their personal and professional communities, and much more,” says Nina Molinaro, chair the Van Ek selection committee and an associate professor of Spanish.
“This year's selection committee was profoundly impressed by the number of applicants, by the academic accomplishments of all of the nominees, and by their shared commitment to and passion for service in innumerable venues.”
The award is named for Jacob Van Ek, who arrived at CU as a young assistant professor shortly after earning his doctorate at the State University of Iowa in 1925. Within three years he was a full professor, and by 1929 he was dean of the College of Liberal Arts, serving until 1959.
The following students are this year’s Jacob Van Ek Scholar Award recipients:
Noemi Banda, Integrative Physiology
Samantha Bartolo, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Sociology
Natania Bloch, History, Jewish Studies
Madie Boreman, Psychology, Women and Gender Studies
Janielle Burrage, Neuroscience
Liam Canty, Integrative Physiology
Kelly Dinneen, Mathematics, Neuroscience, Philosophy
Mariana Galvez Seminario, Sociology, Women and Gender Studies
Olivia Gardner, Ethnic Studies, Women and Gender Studies
Lucy Haggard, Geography
Kiana Harkema, International Affairs, Computer Science
Raven Jayne, Anthropology
Kate Lemons, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
Lacie Lochard, History
Maureen McNamara, Integrative Physiology
Aili Miyake, Political Science, Sociology
Santos Navarro-Arriola, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
Erin Phares, Psychology
Megan Pielke, Linguistics, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
Alison Weinberger, Mathematics, Philosophy