Student honored with Goldwater Scholarship

The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, in partnership with the Department of Defense National Defense Education Programs (NDEP), recently announced the recipients of the 2023 Goldwater Scholarship Awards. Olivia Calkins, E24, an undergraduate student at Tufts School of Engineering, was one of 413 recipients of this prestigious award.

Calkins is currently a junior majoring in chemical engineering in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. She is part of Stern Family Professor David Kaplan’s research lab, and her research focuses on cellular agriculture. After completing her undergraduate degree, Calkins plans to pursue a PhD in biological engineering and cellular agriculture. Ultimately, she hopes to conduct cellular agriculture research in an academic setting. Calkins is a Laidlaw Scholar and works part time doing cellular agriculture outreach through the Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach.

The Goldwater Foundation Scholarship Program is federally endowed to honor the memory of Senator Barry Goldwater. The program fosters and encourages outstanding students to pursue research careers in the fields of the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics. Nearly 10,000 scholarships have been awarded to distinguished undergraduate researchers since 1989.