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Undergraduates honored for their academic achievement and service

Twenty outstanding undergraduates have received the Jacob Van Ek scholarship, one of the College of Arts and Sciences’ highest honors. 

The award recognizes exceptional undergraduates who excel in their academics and meaningfully contribute to the ���񱦵� and the community. Faculty mentors nominate applicants on the basis of GPA and students’ depth of service.

Finalists for this year’s award were chosen by a five-person selection committee from a pool of 38 applicants.

“The student recipients of this year's Van Ek Award are academically high-achieving and committed to an impressive and constantly expanding range of service to their academic departments, to the university, to the state of Colorado, to their personal and professional communities, and much more,” says Nina Molinaro, chair the Van Ek selection committee and an associate professor of Spanish. 

“This year's selection committee was profoundly impressed by the number of applicants, by the academic accomplishments of all of the nominees, and by their shared commitment to and passion for service in innumerable venues.”

The award is named for Jacob Van Ek, who arrived at CU as a young assistant professor shortly after earning his doctorate at the State University of Iowa in 1925. Within three years he was a full professor, and by 1929 he was dean of the College of Liberal Arts, serving until 1959. 

The following students are this year’s Jacob Van Ek Scholar Award recipients:

Noemi Banda, Integrative Physiology

Samantha Bartolo, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Sociology

Natania Bloch, History, Jewish Studies

Madie Boreman, Psychology, Women and Gender Studies

Janielle Burrage, Neuroscience

Liam Canty, Integrative Physiology

Kelly Dinneen, Mathematics, Neuroscience, Philosophy

Mariana Galvez Seminario, Sociology, Women and Gender Studies

Olivia Gardner, Ethnic Studies, Women and Gender Studies

Lucy Haggard, Geography

Kiana Harkema, International Affairs, Computer Science

Raven Jayne, Anthropology

Kate Lemons, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences

Lacie Lochard, History

Maureen McNamara, Integrative Physiology

Aili Miyake, Political Science, Sociology

Santos Navarro-Arriola, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology

Erin Phares, Psychology

Megan Pielke, Linguistics, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences

Alison Weinberger, Mathematics, Philosophy