Alexander Manduca '22 Wins the Goldwater Scholarship

Alex Manduca '22, a physics major at Saint Joseph's University, wearing a mask — Alexander Manduca '22

Alexander Manduca ’22 has been selected as a Barry M. Goldwater Scholar for the 2021-2022 academic year. The Goldwater Scholarship, started in 1986 by Congress to honor Senator Barry Goldwater, is the most prestigious U.S. undergraduate scholarship in math, engineering and the natural sciences. The Scholarship provides $7,500 in funding to outstanding sophomore and junior students who show academic promise and intend to pursue graduate research in STEM fields. Alex is one of just 475 students nationwide awarded scholarships for the 2021 competition. Winners were selected from a pool of 1,256 undergraduates nominated by 438 institutions across the country.

During his time at Saint Joseph's University, Alex has been selected for induction into the Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society, received a DAAD-RISE summer research fellowship to Germany and has been a student president of the Society of Physics Students chapter at Saint Joseph's, which received a national award for best chapter. Alex has presented the results of his undergraduate research with advisor Mark Devlin, Ph.D., standing faculty in University of Pennsylvania's Department of Physics and Astronomy, at the 2020 ACPol Cluster Telecon meeting in Princeton, New Jersey, and the 2019 National Physics Congress in Providence, Rhode Island.

Alex plans to earn a Ph.D. in astronomical engineering so he can help build future spacecraft.