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A Liberal Arts and Sciences student is a Goldwater Scholar honorable mention honoree for 2015.

Sam Schulte

Sam Schulte was “overjoyed and honored” to be included on the Goldwater list. The Goldwater is the nation’s premier undergraduate award in mathematics, natural sciences and engineering. This week, 269 Goldwater Scholars were announced and another 260 were named honorable mention out of 1,206 applicants.

A junior biochemistry major from West Des Moines, Schulte intends to earn a doctorate in biochemistry focused on applied biochemistry and computational methods to improve smallholder farm crop systems. He works in Professor Reuben Peter’s lab in the Roy J. Carver Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at ISU. He previously did research with Kemin Industries, as a Wallace-Carver Fellow with U.S. Department of Agriculture and as a World Food Prize intern with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico.

Schulte was a member of the Iowa State Honors Program and performs in the ISU Wind Ensemble, the university’s premier band. Schulte is in his second year at ISU after transferring from St. Olaf College in Minnesota.

“I was overjoyed and honored to be recognized by the Goldwater selection committee,” Schulte said. “I am so thankful for the people at Iowa State who have supported me, and for the Goldwater Foundation recognizing the importance of scientific research.”

Joining Schulte from Iowa State were Catherine Meis, a materials engineering major who was named a Goldwater Scholar, and Jered Stratton, a genetics student from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences who was also honorable mention.

In 1986 Congress established the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program to honor Goldwater, a five-term senator from Arizona. The program was launched in 1989 and has provided more than 7,400 scholarships.

Goldwater Foundation