Physics major Adele Myers ’21 has been awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, which provides $7,500 a year for undergraduate education expenses to sophomores and juniors who intend to pursue careers in mathematics, natural sciences or engineering. Working with physicist Greg Spriggs at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Myers discovered evidence of a phenomenon called water entrainment in nuclear blasts over water.

Recent graduate Sal Wanying Fu ’19 has received a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, a $90,000 merit-based grant for outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate school in the United States. A current astrophysics doctoral student at University of California, Berkeley, Fu is among 30 students selected from a pool of more than 2,000 applicants. She is the fourth Pomona graduate to join the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows.

Franco Liu ’20 has been awarded a Downing Scholarship to study linguistics at the University of Cambridge for 2020-21. An international student from China, Liu was hooked on the discipline after taking an introductory course with Professor Michael Diercks during his first year of college. The award will cover Liu’s tuition, fees, living expenses and round-trip travel, as well as a stipend for books, local travel and personal expenses.

Yannai Kashtan ’20 became the first Pomona student and the first chemistry student to win a prestigious Knight-Hennessy scholarship, which provides a full ride to Stanford University to pursue any graduate program of his choosing. The award criteria for winners include “rebellious minds and independent spirits” and “future global leaders.” He plans to study photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction with groups working on integrated artificial photosynthesis modules.

During the pandemic, the Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program, known on campus as PPE, saw its initials co-opted in the national media as the pandemic focused public attention on shortages of personal protective equipment. So, when Professor Eleanor Brown ’75, chair of the program, was casting about for some memento to send to the graduating PPE seniors, she hit upon the idea of co-opting a piece of personal protective equipment “to proclaim the essential nature of this quintessential liberal arts degree.” Modeling the PPE’s new PPE in the photo above is Rachel Oda ’20.

Even in the midst of a global health crisis, the work of the admissions office has gone on with the selection of the new Pomona College Class of 2024. Here are a few facts about the new class of Sagehens:

745 were offered admission.

49 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico, are represented.

45 other countries were home to new admits.

52% of the class are female and 48% male.

58.8% are domestic students of color.

20.7% of the class will be first-generation college students.

26 transfer students were admitted.

4 military veterans were admitted, representing the Army, Marine Corps and Navy.

90% are in the top 10% of their class.

6 are graduates of the Pomona Academy for Youth Success (PAYS).

16 admitted students were matched through Pomona’s partnership with QuestBridge.

20 were admitted through the Posse Foundation.

President G. Gabrielle Starr has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences joining a new class of members recognized for outstanding achievements in academia, the arts, business, government and public affairs.

Starr is a highly regarded scholar of English literature whose work reaches into neuroscience and the arts. Her research looks closely at the brain, through the use of fMRI, to help get to the heart of how people respond to paintings, music and other forms of art. She is a national voice on access to college for students of all backgrounds, the future of higher education, women in leadership and the importance of the arts. She took office as the 10th president of Pomona College in 2017.

The Academy was chartered in 1780 to “cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people.” Academy members are elected on the basis of their leadership in academics, the arts, business or public affairs and have ranged from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to such 20th-century luminaries as Margaret Mead, Martin Luther King Jr. and Akira Kurosawa.

For 2020, the Academy elected 276 new members. In addition to Starr, the group includes singer Joan C. Baez, former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., author Ann Patchett, poet and former Pomona College professor Claudia Rankine, among others.

Starr joins a number of exemplary Pomona alumni and former faculty in the AAAS, including scientists Jennifer Doudna ’85, J. Andrew McCammon ’69 and Tom Pollard ’64; author Louis Menand ’73; art historian Ingrid Rowland ’74; artist James Turrell ’65; journalist Joe Palca ’74; and genomic biologist Sarah Elgin ’67.

The Academy is led by Pomona College President Emeritus David Oxtoby, who was inducted into the Academy in 2012 and was named its president in 2018. He served as president of Pomona College from 2003 until 2017.

Starr becomes the third Pomona College president to join the Academy. David Alexander, who served as president of Pomona from 1969 to 1991, was inducted into the Academy in 2006.