In 1998-99 the Office of Undergraduate Research successfully competed to earn Berkeley a place among twenty institutions in the nation chosen to participate in the new Beckman Scholars Program. This program focuses on developing the talents of the nation’s most promising young scientists. Through generous summer stipends the Beckman Scholars Program enabled four Berkeley undergraduates–Zev Gartner, Tiffany Horng, Vikram Rao, and Jennifer Ziskin–to pursue their research projects in faculty laboratories, under the guidance of faculty mentors, over two summers: 1998 and 1999. An academic-year grant from the program allowed them to continue work on their projects during the school year. At the end of their second summer of research, they joined sixty other Beckman Scholars from across the United States in presenting their research findings at the first annual Beckman Scholars Symposium.

Beckman Scholars are selected not only for their knowledge of science, but for their creativity and initiative, signs that they will be future leaders in their fields. Our first four Beckman Scholars are already pursuing paths that will lead them to leadership positions. Gartner is beginning a Ph.D. program in Chemistry and Biology at Harvard University this fall; Horng is beginning a Ph.D. Program in Immunology at Yale University; Rao, who was the 1999 University Medallist (the highest honor bestowed on a graduating senior at Berkeley), is beginning an M.D./Ph.D. program at the University of California, San Francisco; and Ziskin is applying to M.D./Ph.D. programs for fall 2000.