Zac Rice Earns Prestigious Goldwater Scholarship
4/1/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
MACON, Ga. – Mercer University sophomore Zac Rice has earned one of the nation's most prestigious and competitive research scholarships for undergraduate students, the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, which was awarded to only 252 students for the 2016-2017 academic year. Rice is the University's fourth Goldwater Scholarship winner in as many years.
Additionally, Mercer student Jessica Resnick was selected as an honorable mention for the Goldwater Scholarship, marking the second time that the University has had two students recognized by the Goldwater Foundation in the same year. Over the last four years, Mercer undergraduates have claimed 22 percent of the Goldwater Scholarships awarded to students at Georgia colleges and universities.
"Applicants undergo a rigorous application process and must write a detailed scientific proposal for an independent research project," said Dr. Adam Kiefer, associate professor of chemistry and the Goldwater Scholarship faculty representative at Mercer. "This award is not only a testament to these students' hard work, intelligence and determination, but also recognizes their potential as future researchers."
Rice was awarded the scholarship based on academic merit from a field of 1,150 mathematics, science and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide. The one- and two-year scholarships, awarded to undergraduate sophomores and juniors, cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.
"It is an honor and a privilege to receive this award, and it brings me great joy to represent Mercer in this capacity," said Rice. "The Lord has blessed me, and for that I am grateful. I am especially thankful to my family, my research adviser Dr. Makhin Thitsa, Dr. Loren Sumner, Dr. Chamaree de Silva and Dr. Adam Kiefer, all of whom helped me tremendously in applying for this award."
Rice, from Newberry, Florida, is majoring in electrical engineering at Mercer and is an offensive lineman on the Bears football team. He works in the lab of Dr. Thitsa, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the School of Engineering, where Rice has derived the nonlinear feedback control law for controlling a passively Q-switched pulsed laser system.
Q-switched lasers are high intensity laser pulses with extremely short durations of a few nanoseconds. As technology progresses, micromachining requires more precision, reliability and predictability from these lasers. Using governing equations of laser dynamics, Rice developed an advanced nonlinear controller for the laser pulses. This work, confirmed by simulations, was submitted to The 82nd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society Southeastern Section. An abstract was published in the Bulletin of the American Physical Society, and Dr. Thitsa and Rice are currently preparing a peer-reviewed article for which he will serve as the second author.
"The nature of my research area, nonlinear control systems, is highly theoretical and focuses on applications of nonlinear control methods on various physical systems," said Dr. Thitsa. "It is challenging for a theoretician to recruit undergraduate students for research. The task of filling in the necessary background for these students so they can make meaningful contributions is daunting, but Zac is the type of student who enjoys abstract thinking and welcomes the challenges of scientific investigations using advanced mathematical tools."
Rice, who is minoring in Christianity and computer science, plans to obtain a Ph.D. in electrical engineering with a focus in non-linear controls. He hopes to conduct research and teach at the university level. The valedictorian of his graduating class at Newberry High School, Rice received a Presidential Scholarship and Engineering Scholarship to Mercer, in addition to an athletic scholarship to join the football team. He is the University's first engineering student and second student-athlete to earn recognition from the Goldwater Foundation.
Goldwater Scholars have very impressive academic qualifications that have garnered the attention of prestigious postgraduate fellowship programs. Recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 86 Rhodes Scholarships, 125 Marshall Awards, 134 Churchill Scholarships and numerous other distinguished fellowships, such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships.
The Goldwater Foundation is a federally endowed agency established by Public Law 99-661 on Nov. 14, 1986. The scholarship program, honoring Sen. Barry Goldwater, was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields. Since its first award in 1989, the Foundation has bestowed 7,680 scholarships worth approximately $48 million.
