Goldwater Scholar and Fulbright Award Recipients Announced

Alexa Larsen and Rebecca Voth join Amanda Braswell, John Ryan Isaacson and Sofia Sonner as Baylor’s spring Fulbright recipients. Their awards bring Baylor's total to 56 Fulbright recipients since 2001.
More than 1,900 U.S. students will conduct research, teach English and provide expertise abroad for the 2018- 2019 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement as well as record of service and leadership potential in their respective fields.
Alexa Larsen, a senior neuroscience major, has been selected to receive a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to the United Kingdom in global health. Larsen will pursue a master of science in global health at the University of Southampton and conduct research as part of a project concentrating on interventions to prevent early motherhood.
After the Fulbright, Larsen plans to attend medical school in the United States. She hopes to become a primary care physician, possibly in pediatrics, family medicine or obstetrics/gynecology, while also participating in global health work and medical service abroad.
“Alexa is an academic superstar. Not
coincidentally, she listens more than she speaks,” says Baylor faculty mentor Lisa Baker, MD, PhD, clinical professor in the Honors Program.
Baker also taught Larsen during her courses in Maastricht as part of a pre-med semester study abroad program.
“Alexa is a woman who sees beyond circumstances to meaning and potential. She touches suffering without hesitation, and she considered it a privilege to share a patient’s deep pain.”
Rebecca Voth, a senior University Scholar studying political science, international studies, philosophy and Spanish, has been selected to receive a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) to Mexico.
“In just the last two years, she has played a vital role in procuring and directing more than $135,000 to nonprofit organizations in Waco and around the globe. She also has done transformational work to secure legal rights and opportunity for Syrian and Central American refugees—this, of course, on top of her work as founder and CEO of a Dallas nonprofit (Splash Inc.) that teaches water safety to under-resourced children,” says Dr. Andy Hogue, senior lecturer and director of the Philanthropy and Public Service Program in the Honors College.
Larsen and Voth, along with previously announced Fulbright recipients Braswell, Isaacson and Sonner, will begin their Fulbright exchanges this fall.
Christina Gaw, a sophomore biochemistry and anthropology major, has been selected to receive a Barry Goldwater Scholarship, one of the oldest and most prestigious national awards for undergraduate research in mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering.
Based on her academic merit, Gaw is among 211 Goldwater Scholars selected from a field of 1,280 STEM student nominees nationwide. The two-year scholarship will cover the cost of tuition, fees, books and room and board, up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.
The Goldwater Scholarship Program seeks to identify and support college undergraduates who show exceptional promise of becoming the next generation of U.S. research leaders in critical STEM fields. Each year, Baylor is only allowed to nominate four students to compete nationally for a Goldwater Scholarship, said Dr. Jeffrey S. Olafsen, associate professor, undergraduate program director in physics and Baylor’s Goldwater representative.
“As a sophomore awardee, Christina will receive two years of support from the Goldwater program as opposed to the more commonly awarded junior recipient that obtains a single year of support,” Olafsen said.
“To win a Goldwater Scholarship as a sophomore speaks to both the strength of her application on the national stage and the high quality of research she has had the opportunity to involve herself in at Baylor University.”