The University of Kansas on Friday announced five nominees for prestigious Goldwater Scholarships, including a Free State High School alum from Lawrence.
The Barry M. Goldwater scholarship recognizes students’ academic excellence and undergraduate research in STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math.
Here’s more info about the students and their work, as provided by the university:
• Arthur Benson, from Lawrence, is a junior in chemical engineering with a concentration in data science engineering and minor in music, according to a news release from KU. He’s the son of David and Nadya Benson and a graduate of Free State High School. He plans to pursue a doctorate in chemical engineering focused on sustainable energy systems, according to the release.
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“Benson began his research with a project on refrigerant flammability testing under the supervision of KU faculty member Mark Shiflett, leading to a publication in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research,” according to the release. He was awarded the 2025 Outstanding Presentation Award for that work at the 28th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, according to a separate news release from the university.
“He then completed a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates at the University of California, Irvine, under the guidance of Erdem Sasmaz, where his work on sustainable hydrogen production was featured in a manuscript under review by the Journal of CO2 Utilization,” according to the release. “He presented these projects at regional and national American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) student conferences and is now conducting molecular modeling of high-energy-density batteries under the mentorship of KU faculty member Yiling Nan.”
• Tatum Aikin, from Westwood, is the daughter of Abby Parker and Brandon Aikin and a graduate of Shawnee Mission East High School who plans to pursue a doctorate in immunology and conduct research pertaining to autoimmune diseases and sex-based differences in immunological conditions, according to the release.
“She has conducted research on Type I diabetes in the Markiewicz Lab at KU Medical Center as a K-INBRE Summer Scholar,” according to the release. “She has also received and Undergraduate Research Award and was chosen to be a K-INBRE Summer Scholar once more for the Orozco Lab at KU, where she is investigating how an autoimmunity-associated gene variant impacts the function of the immune cell macrophages, examining if altered macrophage function could change other aspects of the immune response in specific disease contexts. She has presented this work at the 2025 Autumn Immunology Conference, earning an Undergraduate Award for her abstract “Trends in Immunology” and is additionally presenting this work at the 2026 K-INBRE Symposium.”
• Gabrielle Bolfing, from Eureka, Missouri, is the daughter of Kim and Scott Bolfing and a graduate of Eureka High School.
“She is dual majoring in astronomy and geology with a minor in astrobiology. She aspires to pursue a doctorate in planetary science with focus in either atmospheric chemistry or geologic processes and mineralogical deposits,” according to the release. “In her time on the Lawrence campus, she is president of KU’s chapter of the Society of Physics Students and is active in the department’s public outreach initiative. She is also an active member of Crossfield ExoLab research group, researching exoplanet atmospheric chemistry, currently on sub-Neptune atmospheric modeling.”
• Carter Gray, from Olathe, is the son of John and Maureen Gray and a graduate of Olathe North High School.
“Carter is majoring in applied computing with a focus in chemistry,” according to the release. “He plans to pursue a doctorate in biophysics and work on cutting-edge research to understand protein mutations. Carter started his research journey in high school in the Swint-Kruse lab at KU Medical Center, where he worked on developing a set of novel transcription factors for synthetic biology. He has now submitted a first author manuscript currently under review at the journal PLOS One.”
• Emily Messenger, from Lenexa, is the daughter of Heather and Jeff Messenger and a graduate of Olathe Northwest High School, according to the release. She transferred to KU from Northeastern University, where she studied cognitive psychology and large language models.
“She was a Summer Scholar in the Advanced Neuroimaging Lab at Children’s Mercy Research Institute, where she created several processing pipelines to systematically elicit the optimal set of parameters for aligning multisite pediatric rs-fMRI datasets, with the goal of analyzing normative and non-normative neurodevelopmental trajectories among infants,” according to the release. “After presenting this work, she submitted her first-author abstract to an international conference for peer review and publication. She now plans to expand this work in the new year as an intern at the Fetal-Neonatal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center. At the KU Institute for Information Sciences (I2s), she is also working under the guidance of KU faculty member Suzanne Shontz to leverage machine-learning techniques for the characterization of cardiac MRI data.”
Read more about the students and their work from KU.
The Goldwater Scholarship is open to sophomore- and junior-level students. Nominees submit applications with essays about their career aspirations and research along with three faculty recommendations.
The winners — around 450 every year — will be announced by the Goldwater Foundation trustees in late March, according to the release. Scholarship awards cover eligible expenses for undergraduate tuition, fees, books, and room and board, up to $7,500 annually. KU has had 80 students receive Goldwater scholarships since they were first awarded in 1989, according to the release.
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