Katie Gunderson, Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy Student, Awarded 2008 Gates Cambridge Scholarship
CPSGG undergraduate student Katie Gunderson has been awarded the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship for 2008. Gunderson is the first OU student to win the highly competitive scholarship, established by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000.
Gunderson is a majoring in geology and chemistry at the University of Oklahoma, and has been involved in undergraduate research for several years. She recently interned at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory studying nuclear waste remediation technologies. Gunderson has also studied paleoclimate in Tanzania, East Africa, and has been a research intern at the University of Notre Dame studying uranyl peroxide nanoclusters. Gunderson was awarded the 2007-2008 Goldwater Scholarship for excellence in science, and the Udall Scholarship for environmental studies and is treasurer for the programming branch of the University of Oklahoma Student Association.
While at Cambridge, Gunderson intends to pursue a Ph.D. focusing on nuclear waste forms and atomic processes through the Department of Earth Sciences. Her desire is to advance current knowledge about nuclear waste and how it interacts with and affects the environment. Gunderson plans to participate in research at a national laboratory or become a research and teaching faculty at a University, translating what she learns through research to a larger public discussion about the viability and sustainability of nuclear power as an energy source, with regard to the environmental impact of nuclear waste.
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Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy
100 East Boyd Street Room 510
Norman, Oklahoma 73019
(405) 325-3821
e:mail: mcee@ou.edu
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