Karl Winsor Honored with Goldwater Scholarship

Honors Mathematics and Computer Science undergraduate student Karl Winsor has been named a Goldwater Scholar for the 2015-16 academic year.

Congress established the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program in 1986 to honor the late senator, who served his country for 56 years as a soldier and statesman, including 30 years in the U.S. Senate.

The program provides scholarships to students interested in careers in science, math, and engineering, and they are considered the premier scholarships awarded to undergraduates in these fields.

Karl, from Ann Arbor, is involved with the Michigan Math Circle, a program that engages high school and middle school students in mathematics topics outside of the standard curriculum. He is co-president of the Society of Undergraduate Math Students and a member of Eta Kappa Nu. Karl enjoys attending quantum information processing seminars at Michigan and participating in hackathons on campus.

Last summer, Karl participated in the 2014 SMALL REU program at Williams College, where he did research on elliptic curves, L-functions, and random matrix theory.

This summer, he will be working with Prof. Yaoyun Shi on a project in quantum cryptography. One goal of this work will be to provide improved constructions and security guarantees for One-Time Memories, quantum devices that store multiple messages but allow only one message to be read. The project is part of the 2015 Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering (SURE) program.

Karl’s career goals are to obtain a Ph.D. in Mathematics, to conduct research in Number Theory and Random Matrix Theory, and to teach at the university level.

The 260 Goldwater Scholars for 2015 were selected on the basis of merit from 1,206 mathematics, science and engineering students, nominated by their school faculties nationwide. The one and two year scholarships will cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year. Goldwater Scholars have very impressive academic qualifications that have garnered the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs. Recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 86 Rhodes Scholarships, 123 Marshall Awards, 123 Churchill Scholarships, and numerous other distinguished fellowships such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships.

For more information, see the 2015 Goldwater Scholar press release.