Contact: Sammy McDavid
A Mississippi State senior from Raymond who is planning a career in academic medicine and research is a national Barry M. Goldwater Scholar.
Erica L. Thomas is among more than 300 American university and college students selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of nearly 1,200 school-nominated mathematics, science and engineering majors. A biological sciences major with a perfect 4.0 grade-point average, she is among 121 women in the 2000-2001 scholar class.
Honoring the longtime United States senator from Arizona, the awards are given by the Goldwater Foundation, a federally endowed agency created by Congress in 1986. The one- and two-year scholarships cover tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to $7,500 a year.
"Goldwaters are considered to be the premier undergraduate academic awards of their type," said Christopher M. Duncan, director of MSU's Office of Distinguished External Scholarships. "They are designed to encourage students to pursue professional careers. Like Erica, virtually all who have received the scholarship plan to obtain a doctoral degree.
"We applaud her many achievements at MSU and anticipate many more as she continues her education," he added.
Duncan said the Goldwater award is the second such honor in a month for Thomas, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ray F. Thomas and a 1997 Raymond High School graduate.
"Erica recently was named the first John C. Longest Memorial Premedical Scholar at Mississippi State," he said, noting that the $1,200 scholarship is named for the university's longtime student health center director who died in 1998.
In addition to her studies, Thomas currently works in the department of biological sciences' Developmental Biology Research Laboratory.
She previously has received the National Achievement Bell-South, E.B. McCool University, Mildred Brand Premedical, and Robert C. Byrd scholarships. Her honor societies include Alpha Lambda Delta, Beta Beta Beta, Gamma Beta Phi, Golden Key, Phi Eta Sigma, and Phi Kappa Phi.