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Junior Receives Goldwater Scholarship

UNC junior Matt Leming of New Orleans has been awarded a 2014 Goldwater Scholarship. Sam Resnick of Gainesville, Fla., and also a junior, received an honorable mention.

A computer science and Russian language and literature major, Leming conducted research in neuroimaging at UNC and worked on artificial intelligence in St. Petersburg, Russia, on a Class of 1938 Fellowship. He plans to spend this summer in London as a Burch Fellow, studying a new image-analysis method.

Through a Carolina program — called Carolina Students Taking Academic Responsibility through Teaching — Leming became accredited to teach his own course. The 15-person class combines the history and societal implications of computer science with a computer-programming component. He also has been a teaching assistant for Foundations of Computer Programming.

Leming also is working with UNC’s Information Technology Services to design and program a new UNC mobile phone application. He also is the founder and president of the UNC Association of Computing Machinery (also known as the Computer Science Club), serves as an associate justice on the Student Supreme Court, has drawn weekly political cartoons for The Daily Tar Heel and serves as the head copy editor for Carolina Scientific magazine. Recently, he was an organizer for HackNC, UNC’s largest “hackathon,” an intense conference for computer coding enthusiasts.

Leming’s career goals include pursuing a doctorate in computational neuroscience, conducting research in medical imaging and teaching at the university level. His ultimate hope is “to head a research laboratory that brings artificial intelligence and medical imaging to a crossroads,” he said.

Resnick has conducted complex research on cancer cells, won the prize for best chemistry student in his year, has written for Carolina Scientific and helped develop programs at Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center to support families who are affected by a parent’s cancer. He plans to pursue a medical degree or doctorate in genomics or epigenomics and use his research knowledge to study and diagnose genetic diseases.

The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program of Springfield, Va., announced 283 recipients nationwide this year from a pool of 1,166 nominees. The scholarship provides up to $7,500 per year for educational expenses to sophomores and juniors who intend to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences or engineering.


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