Sam Otto and Ben Helfrecht, each a junior at Purdue University, are newly minted 2015 Goldwater Scholars. Nicholas Pogranichniy, who won the award last year as a sophomore, is also a 2015 Goldwater Scholar. Dalton Chaffee, a sophomore pursuing a major in electrical engineering received a 2015 Goldwater Honorable Mention. The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by Congress in 1986. It awards up to $7500 toward tuition, fees, and board to sophomores and juniors pursuing research careers in science, mathematics, or engineering.

Goldwater Scholarship recipients are incredibly talented undergraduates who already conduct research in their fields. Students pursuing the Goldwater Scholarship take part in a university-wide nomination process through Purdue’s National and International Scholarships Office, housed in Honors College. They undergo rigorous professional development, which includes writing an in-depth research proposal to be reviewed and selected by an interdisciplinary panel of faculty. Only four students each year are chosen to be put forward for national competition.

Sam Otto is from Pittsburg, PA and has conducted research at the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering with Dr. Gregory Blaisdell and as an intern at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. Otto conducts theoretical research in turbulence and computational physics in order to understand how and why turbulence arises in nature. His research aims to have a profound impact on controlling jet noise, combustion, and atmospheric science.

Ben Helfrecht, from Batavia, IL, studies materials science in the School of Materials Engineering and Purdue Honors College. He researches atomic mechanisms at work in electronic materials and how these mechanisms influence material properties and behavior. This basic research has the potential to accelerate the development of new kinds of computer memory or energy conversion devices. Helfrecht has conducted research at Purdue in two different groups, with Dr. Alejandro Strachnan and Dr. Kendra Erk.

Nicholas Pogranichniy is from West Lafayette, IN and a biochemistry major in the College of Science. He has worked closely with Dr. Garth Simpson, Professor of Analytical and Physical Chemistry, on photon-counting imaging detectors that will improve optical imaging.

Dalton Chaffee is an electrical engineering major in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Honors College. Chaffee researches with Dr. Peter Bermel in Purdue’s Birck Nanotechnology Center on modeling thin-film solar cells. His plans include the development of high efficiency and economically feasible solar cells that will provide a solid alternative to fossil fuels.