Honors College Awards

This year, students in USAs honors program won more than 10 national awards.
The South Alabama honors program has steadily gained recognition over its lifespan with
more national awards recipients each year. Michael Doran, former director of the honors
program, constantly encouraged students to apply for them. He urged students to look into the
national awards so that they could have a chance of winning them. These include the Barry
Goldwater Scholarship, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship , the
NOAA Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship, and the Benjamin A. Gilman International
Scholarship. His constant reminders to enter into these competitions paid off.
The Goldwater is the most famous award among honors students. Accredited universities
throughout the country choose only four students each year who apply for the award. This past
year, Ben Siu, a senior chemical engineering student at USA, received a Goldwater for his
research in ionic liquids with thermal stability.
I got a huge confidence boost with myself when I got it. It has confirmed that I can
actually fit in at graduate school, said Siu.
An additional 307 students nationwide received honorable mentions for the Goldwater.
Alex Coley and Phiwat Klomkaew, both honors students at USA, each earned one last year.
Coley is a pre-med student who plans on pursuing a medical doctorate and Ph.D. in order to
become an oncologist, and Klomkaew is an engineering major who also plans on receiving his
Ph.D. in biomedical engineering.
USA students Madison Tuttle and Robert Faulk won the notable NSF Graduate Research
Fellowship last year. The fellowship supports students who are in a STEM field and plan to
pursue research-based masters or doctoral degrees. As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind,
the NSF Fellowship has an impressive record among recipients. Forty-two fellows have gone on
to become Nobel Prize recipients and more than 450 have become members of the National
Academy of Sciences.
Tuttle graduated this past spring with her bachelors degree in chemistry. Her advice to
hopeful fellowship recipients is to give maximum effort and to start working on the application
early.
Faulk is pursuing dual masters degrees in experimental psychology and sociology. The
first time he applied for the fellowship, he received an honorable mention.
I nailed it the second time, though, Faulk said.
While the Goldwater and NSF Fellowship provide tuition and other financial assistance,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship does
much more. It includes a 10-week, full-time, paid internship with the NOAA. Caroline
Kolakoski, a junior majoring in meteorology, earned one this year. This summer, she will visit
NOAA headquarters in Washington, D.C., and next summer, she will pick any National Weather
Service station to intern at as a part of her scholarship.
 Since NOAA is very difficult to get a job at, this presents me with many opportunities as
a professional meteorologist. Living in a different part of the country next summer will help me
extend my networking, as well, Kolakoski said.
With the addition of the honors college next year to the current honors program, there is
no doubt that more students within the honors community will continue to win these awards and
represent USA on a national level.