Two Colorado State University students have been named as 2015 recipients of the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and a third CSU student received an honorable mention.

Emily Robitschek, a biochemistry and anthropology major, and Matthew Truelove, a biochemistry major, were two of the 260 undergraduate students from across the country selected to receive a Goldwater Scholarship, which provides them up to $7,500 per year for the final one or two years of study. Mitchell Bordelon, a chemistry major, received an honorable mention.

All three are students in the University Honors Program and part of the College of Natural Sciences.

Goldwater Scholarships are awarded to outstanding students pursuing careers in science, mathematics and engineering. The awards are extremely competitive – more than 1,200 students were nominated by professors and faculty from U.S. colleges and universities.

Past recipients have gone on to be awarded 86 Rhodes Scholarships, 123 Marshall Awards, 123 Churchill Scholarships, and numerous other distinguished fellowships such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships.

Robitschek and Truelove are the 16^th and 17^th CSU scholars to be named Goldwater Scholars.

“CSU students were incredibly successful in the Goldwater Scholarship competition this year,” said Mary Swanson, the national competitive scholarship advisor for the university.  “No institution can nominate more than four students for this award in a single year, and the fact that three of our students were recognized by the Goldwater Foundation is outstanding.”

The Goldwater Foundation is a federally endowed agency established in 1986 to honor former U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater. It is designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering.

Here is more information about this year’s Goldwater honorees:

• Emily Robitschek, a junior, has gained extensive research experience during her years at CSU. She has worked on projects under Christie Peebles, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Diane Ordway, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology. She spent last summer researching cancer immunotherapy at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as an intern and is currently taking classes as a visiting student at Johns Hopkins University to learn more about stem cells, public health and cancer biology.
• Matthew Truelove plans to pursue a career in veterinary medicine and research. He has become a key individual in the pathology laboratory at CSU’s Diagnostic Medicine Center, where he researches the effect of obesity on canine biochemical and blood parameters. His work will help researchers develop better diagnostic tools for obesity identification and his findings have been presented at various symposiums and conferences. His goal is to conduct research that bridges the gap between human and animal diseases, with a particular focus on obesity.
• Mitchell Bordelon is pursuing a degree in chemistry with minors in physics, mathematics and business administration. As a freshman, he began working with Debbie Crans, a chemistry professor, studying the interactions of anti-cancer drugs with a model membrane system. He also has interned at a pharmaceutical company, and spent time conducting research at a university in Germany. He currently works on projects for James Neilson, a professor of chemistry, and Kate Ross, a physics professor.