Drexel University’s College of Computing & Informatics (CCI) congratulates student Hunter Heidenreich, BS computer science ‘21 on receiving the 2020 Goldwater Scholarship.
The Goldwater Scholarship recognizes the nation's top undergraduates in natural science, engineering, and mathematics and is the preeminent undergraduate award of its type in these fields. As a Goldwater Scholar, Heidenreich will receive an educational scholarship of up to $7,500/year, as well as national recognition in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Heidenreich is among two Drexel recipients who were selected from a high-competitive pool of more than 5,000 college sophomores and juniors nominated by academic institutions across the United States.
Heidenreich is a junior computer science student minoring in mathematics. He began his research career through Drexel’s STAR Scholars program, working in the Expressive and Creative Interaction Technologies (ExCITe) Center on machine learning and robotics under Youngmoo Kim, PhD. This experience lead to research interest in machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and optimization. Currently, he works under Professor and Computer Science Department Head Jeremy Johnson, PhD on HSpiral (a compiler for efficient signal transform algorithms) and Assistant Professor Jake Williams, PhD on projects centered around language and semantics. He plans to pursue a PhD in computer science centered around machine learning, NLP, and computational social science. CCI Professors Johnson and Williams, as well as Assistant Professor Vasilis Gkatzelis, PhD, served as Hunter's faculty mentors in the Goldwater application process.
Heidenreich joins a community of scholars, including 2018 recipient Robert Ross, BS computer science ’19, with impressive academic and research qualifications, which often garner the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs. Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 93 Rhodes Scholarships, 146 Marshall Scholarships, 170 Churchill Scholarships, 109 Hertz Fellowships, and numerous other distinguished awards like the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships.
The Scholarship Program is made possible by the Goldwater Foundation, a federally endowed agency established by Public Law 99-661 on November 14, 1986. The program was created in honor of Senator Barry Goldwater and was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue research careers in the fields of the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics.