Beckman Scholars Program
The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation has selected Rutgers University-Newark as one of the 2024-2027 Beckman Scholars Program (BSP) sites. This is a remarkable recognition of the excellence of our research programs and their impact on the growth of young scholars from groups whose access to world-class research experiences and research careers in STEM has been often limited.
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Funded by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, the Beckman Scholars Program seeks to stimulate, encourage, and support research activities by exceptionally talented, full-time undergraduate students at four-year institutions. Research activities center on chemistry, biochemistry, the biological and medical sciences, or an interdisciplinary combination of these fields.
The research activities performed by Beckman Scholars will be conducted under the guidance of a selected full-time faculty member. Fourteen faculty members have volunteered as mentors for the Beckman Scholars Program.
The term of Beckman Scholars is 15 months beginning with a full-time summer research experience (40 hours over 10 weeks), followed by an academic year (10 hours per week), and another full-time summer experience.
Scholarship & Support
Beckman Scholars receive a scholarship of up to $21,000 over two summers (two ten-week intensive research programs in the summers) and the intervening academic year. In addition to support for research, the scholarship helps cover attendance at professional meetings including the national Beckman Scholars Program Symposium at the Beckman Foundation (August each year, location TBD).
Scholars participate in activities designed to enrich their development as students and scientists throughout their tenure. These seminars help Beckman Scholars to deepen their understanding of research careers, build communication skills, and establish valuable connections that can support them as they embark on their independent research careers.
During their tenure, Beckman Scholars have many opportunities to present their research via talks, presentations and posters during the summer programs and at national meetings. Scholars also work with their research mentors to prepare manuscripts for peer-reviewed journal publications.
Eligibility Requirements
- Must be one of the following majors: Biology, Chemistry, Earth & Environmental Sciences, and Physics.
- Must be currently enrolled as a full-time RU-Newark student in the first year through junior year
- Must be US Citizen, Permanent Resident or DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) Status
- Must have some research experience
- Must currently work with (or be interested in working with) one of the 14 Beckman Scholars Program Faculty Mentors
- Must intend to pursue a PhD, MD, or MD/PhD
The Beckman Scholars program places equal emphasis on merit, diversity, equity, and inclusion during Scholar Selection. If you have any questions about eligibility or program details, please contact the Program Coordinator.
Accordion Content
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Academic year: $4,600
Each summer: $6,800
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Research Supplies: $1,600
Funding for Conference: $1,200
Research through the program will be conducted under the guidance of one of the fourteen faculty mentors in Biological Sciences, the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Chemistry, Earth & Environmental Sciences, and Physics. Please see the Faculty Mentor page for the list of potential faculty mentors.
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Research Supplies: $3,800
Funding for Conference: $1,200
Faculty Mentors
There are 14 Faculty Mentors for the Beckman Scholar Program.
Travis Baker
Center for Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience
Multimodal neuroimaging techniques. Neural mechanisms underlying learning, decision-making, cognitive control, and spatial navigation.
Elena Galoppini
Chemistry
Design and synthesis of molecules for functionalization of semiconductor or metal surfaces with photo-active and redox-active ligands.
Nan Gao
Biological Sciences
Cellular machinery responsible for the host-microbiome communications. Microbiome factors that affect host susceptibility to inflammation and cancer.
Huixin He
Chemistry
Carbon nanomaterials and their metal nanoparticle composites for catalysis and energy storage.
Frieder Jaekle
Chemistry
Boron-doped conjugated polymers for organic electronics and luminescent
sensory materials. Stimuli-responsive polymers and polymer networks.
Haesun Kim
Biological Sciences
Genetic and intracellular signaling mechanisms that modulate Schwann cell myelination and myelin maintenance. Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease.
Jenny Lockard
Chemistry
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), photoactive coordination complexes and
hybrid materials. Vibrational and synchrotron X-ray absorption spectroscopy.
Juan Mena-Segovia
Center for Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience
Operation of neuromodulatory systems in health and disease, their effects on cortical and subcortical targets at the cellular, circuit and behavioral levels.
Michele Pavanello
Chemistry & Physics
Ground state and time-dependent orbital-free DFT. Non-adiabatic dynamics
with subsystem DFT applied to plasmonic and photovoltaic materials.
Demyan Prokopchuk
Chemistry
Sustainable chemistry. Catalysis and electrocatalysis with Earth abundant metals. C-H bond and CO2 activation.
Ashaki Rouff
Earth & Environmental Sciences
Post-industrial inorganic & organic contaminants in subsoil water. Kinetics of contaminant interactions with mineral phases, mobility and bioaccessibility.
Michal Szostak
Chemistry
New methods for the synthesis of biologically active molecules. Amide bond activation. Organometallic catalysis.
Tracy Tran
Biological Sciences
Cellular mechanisms controlling axonal guidance versus synapse formation. Molecular control of neuronal morphogenesis.
Fei Zhang
Chemistry
Biomolecular design. Structural DNA and RNA nanotechnology applied to
biosensing, drug delivery and bioimaging.
Faculty Testimonials
Travis Baker
Focus of my research is using cognitive neuroscience methods to understand how humans make decisions, how people encode memories, how these kind of cognitive functions are dysregulated in, uh, certain psychiatric populations, such as substance use disorder. I also develop, uh, novel brain stimulation methods to help recover these functions at a personal level.
Mohamd Elwahsh
Research has to do with theta oscillations of the brain. What that means is we are able to read brainwaves and depict actual functions that the brain has. A lot of our work has gone to change our awareness and understanding and of treatment.
Michele Pavanello
My group works in theoretical chemistry, particularly in electronic structure methods. The project that we are doing in this program is about developing software for solving electronic structure of molecules using machine learning.
Mentor Testimonials
Amber Landecho
I am a senior here at Rutgers Newark. I've always had a passion for planetary science and it wasn't until my high school year that I ended up falling in love with physics because I had a great high school professor.