University of Notre Dame juniors Jacob Finley and Connor Smith have been named 2025 Goldwater Scholars in recognition of their exceptional promise as a future research leaders in the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics.
Finley is a physics in medicine major, on the honors track. His research is advised by Profs. Sylwia Ptasinska, Steven H. Lin, and Ian Carmicael. Finley plans to pursue a M.D./Ph.D. in Biophysics, with the goal of practicing radiation oncology and conducting research that probes onco-molecular responses to radiation.
Smith is a physics major, on the honors track, and is part of the Glynn Family Honors program. His research is advised by Prof. Justin Crepp. Smith plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Astrophysics, with the goal of conducting astrophysical research at an observatory or national lab, or research and teach at the university level.
Finley and Smith worked closely with the Flatley Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement (CUSE) in applying for the award.
Finley began his research on the effects of low-energy electrons on biomolecules under the supervision of Sylwia Ptasinska in the fall of 2023. His work focuses on both experimental and computational studies of dissociative electron attachment, a fundamental quantum process with relevance to several medical applications. This process is important during interactions between ionizing radiation and matter, as low-energy electrons are among the most abundant byproducts of radiation.
Finley conducts his experimental studies with other group members in the Radiation Laboratory, as well as in collaboration with a research laboratory in Austria. He also performs quantum chemical calculations to determine the thermodynamic thresholds for potential fragmentation pathways. His computational work is supervised by Ian Carmichael, the director of the Radiation Laboratory.
Finley possesses a distinctive and invaluable combination of experimental and computational skills, allowing him to tackle complex biomolecular interactions grounded in physical principles. He is also the first author of the manuscript titled "Dissociation of Gas-Phase Anisole Induced by Low-Energy Electron Interactions: Understanding Patterns of Aromatic Bond Cleavage," which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Physica Scripta.
Smith joined the Crepp Research Group in 2023 through a ND REU program, earning a Summer Fellowship from the College of Science. Over the past two years, he has been developing numerical models for a remote sensing device that we are building in the lab to compensate for the effects of Earth's turbulent atmosphere (thereby cleaning up images and allowing telescopes to operate as if they would in space). Smith has also contributed to optical alignment efforts, data collection, and analysis.
Smith's work culminated with earning co-authorship on a refereed article published in the Journal of Astronomical Telescopes and Instrument Systems (JATIS), "Centroiding and extraction of tip/tilt information from nonlinear curvature wavefront sensor measurements."
Named for former U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Goldwater Scholarship seeks to foster and encourage outstanding sophomores and juniors to pursue research careers in the natural sciences, engineering and mathematics. It is the preeminent undergraduate award of its type in these fields.