Twenty-six sophomores and juniors have been selected as Burchard Scholars in the School of Humanities and Social Science for 1998.
The awards, named after the School's first dean, John Ely Burchard, are given to students who demonstrate unusual abilities and academic excellence in the areas embraced by the School. The students selected in the 13th year of competition for the awards "are from exciting and diverse backgrounds and are a remarkable group of gifted young scholars," said Dean Philip S. Khoury, co-founder of the Burchard Program and chair of the Selection Committee.
The Burchard Scholars and a rotating group of faculty will be invited to a series of dinners, beginning in February, at which an MIT faculty member or visiting scholar will present work in progress, followed by a discussion. This will allow students and faculty members to mix and will give students, especially, an opportunity to engage in the kind of intellectual exchange that characterizes scholarship in the humanities, arts and social sciences. The emphasis throughout the program will be interdisciplinary.
In addition to Dean Khoury, the selection committee consisted of Professors Isabelle de Courtivron and Margery Resnick (foreign languages and literatures), Professor Stephen Van Evera (political science) and Professor Evan Ziporyn (music and theater arts).
The Burchard Scholars are as follows.
Juniors: Sarah Anderson, political science; Lucia Breierova, economics and mathematics; Christy Canida, chemistry and biology; Petra Chong, electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) and music and theater arts; Paul Czerniak, EECS and mathematics; Teresa DiGenova and Shawdee Eshghi, chemical engineering; Paraskevi Farazi, Jean Lee, Ja Hyun Shin and Pooja Shukla, biology; Carina Fung, biology, literature, and chemical engineering; Marion Groh and Damian Isla, computer science; Ana Isasi, chemical engineering and mathematics; Fenny Lin, brain and cognitive sciences; Matthew Lozow, materials science and engineering; Amalia Miller and Ami Vasanawala, economics; Carolyn Phillips, mathematics; Eric Plosky, planning and civil and environmental engineering; Samuel Sidiqi, political science and economics; Peter Siu, urban studies and planning; and Wesley Watters, physics and mathematics.
Sophomores: Andrew Nevins, undeclared, and Zhelinrentice Scott, management and music.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on February 11, 1998.
