Billy Wilkerson '24 Wins Prestigious Goldwater Scholarship
Photo by Dan Loh.
Billy Wilkerson '24 Becomes Fourth Dickinsonian to Be Awarded the Scholarship in Last Decade
Billy Wilkerson '24 has been awarded a 2023 Goldwater Scholarship, one of the most prestigious awards for undergraduate students in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.
"It took me a while to process," says Wilkerson (biochemistry & molecular biology, data analytics) of the moment he heard the news. "It was a lot of work to put together a good application, so emotionally it holds a lot of significance to me."
The award stems from a partnership between the Department of Defense National Defense Education Programs (NDEP) and the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation and has been awarded since 1986. More than 1,250 undergraduate students were nominated this year, and 413 students were granted the award.
"I know that generally I want to be able to continue investigating the basic science underlying disease," says Wilkerson, noting that last summer he worked on a research project at the Herbert Lab at the University of Pennsylvania and will return to Penn this summer to continue the work. "I intend to take a year or two after I graduate and explore my options more, but for right now I plan to eventually apply to M.D./Ph.D. programs. I hope to one day be able to teach, see patients and run my own lab."
Wilkerson joins Jordan Cox '21, Olivia Wilkins '15 and Phoebe Oldach '13 as the Dickinson students to win a Goldwater over the past 10 years.
"I think a unique component of my application was my data analytics experience," says Wilkerson, on what set him apart in the huge pool of candidates. "The classes I've taken at Dickinson gave me the opportunity to contribute to medical equity research as part of MedNews Week—an online medical education platform. And I just got back from Orlando, where I presented some of our work at the American Association of Cancer Researchers annual meeting."
In the months leading up to the Goldwater nomination deadline, Wilkerson and several other exceptional students worked very closely with the Office of Experiential Learning & Fellowships and Dickinson’s Goldwater advisors (Amity Fox, associate provost for experiential learning & fellowships and Colin Rathbun, assistant professor of chemistry). Applying to competitive and prestigious opportunities like the Goldwater are win-win, regardless of the final result. Throughout the application process, Dickinson students and alumni receive hands-on support from faculty and staff while building skills, experience and knowledge that can help them to launch into fellowships/jobs/internships, apply to graduate schools and pursue future opportunities. It’s important to plan ahead, especially with opportunities that require nomination by Dickinson. For more information, contact fellowships@dickinson.edu.
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Published April 18, 2023