Ayan Mandal Receives Goldwater Scholarship Award

Georgetown Undergraduate Stands Out Amongst Top Students

Ayan Mandal, a junior Neurobiology, and Biological Physics double major, has recently been honored with a Goldwater Scholarship Award. Nominated to represent Georgetown University, Ayan was selected out of a competitive pool of students from 2,000 different colleges and universities nationwide. Since 2015, Ayan has been dedicated to working as a Research Assistant at the Cognitive Recovery Lab and has a current focus on aphasia resulting from strokes. The dedication to research has caught the attention of the Goldwater Scholarship Committee, but Ayan has excelled in all areas in which he has applied himself.

Ayan has led an ambitious research-oriented undergraduate career at Georgetown and has also acted as a visiting research student at the University of Pennsylvania. During the summer of 2016 here at Georgetown and as a Neale-Oppenheimer Summer Scholar, Ayan developed a specialized MATLAB program, learned how to use various machine applications, and has applied graph theoretical approaches to his research in aphasic patients. Additionally, Ayan has served as co-chair for the Carroll Fellows Initiatives, a flagship program for academically ambitious undergraduates. Writing for The Hoya, Georgetown’s student newspaper, Ayan continues to publish columns on neuroscience in order to educate the student body.

After all that Ayan has accomplished, from several different grants and awards to excelling in the classroom and in the research lab, it is no surprise that he has been named a Goldwater Scholar. The $7,500 award will go toward covering the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board. Each year the scholarship is given to students in scientific research in order to foster continued growth. The Georgetown University Biology Department is very proud to have Ayan as an undergraduate.