CI student recognized nationally by Goldwater Foundation
For a second consecutive year a CI student was one of the 275 students to be named nationally as a 2011 Goldwater Scholar and receive a scholarship for $7,500. Only two students were named as Goldwater Scholars from the entire California State University system. The Goldwater Scholar Foundation is designed to foster and encourage outstanding students who wish to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its kind in these fields.
This year’s CI recipient is Danika Lindsay, a junior carrying a double major in Mathematics and Applied Physics with a minor in Computer Science. She has worked with various faculty advisors on a number of research projects during her time at CI. One of her projects was devoted to disrupting terrorist networks for which she modeled such networks using graphs and investigating underlying graph properties to better identify key members of networks, thus allowing intelligence agencies to more specifically focus their efforts.
Lindsay admitted she has always loved mathematics. “There is a sort of beauty in the combination of mathematics with the real world, and it thrills me to be able to actually solve real world problems using the mathematical tools I have learned.” She plans to graduate and go on to the doctoral level, hoping to teach in a university and inspire other young mathematicians as she has been inspired by her professors at CI.