Congratulations to Henry Tran, graduating honors student in chemistry and mathematics, for being awarded the Churchill Scholarship. The Winston Churchill Foundation awards fifteen scholarships annually to graduating seniors and recent graduates demonstrating exceptional academic talent, outstanding personal qualities, and a capacity to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the sciences, engineering, or mathematics. This scholarship awards one year of graduate study in a relevant field at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

 

At Cambridge, Henry will pursue a Masters of Philosophy in Scientific Computing. In the meantime, Henry is conducting research on Jahn-Teller distortions of the NO3 molecule in the theoretical chemistry lab of Dr. Terry Miller, who also attended the University of Cambridge. Henry presented his analysis of NO3’s rotational spectrum and structure in oral presentations at the 2014 and 2015 International Symposia on Molecular Spectroscopy and the 2015 International Symposium on Free Radicals. He has previously conducted theoretical mathematics research in Dr. Sergei Chmutov’s Knots and Graphs Working Group. Henry was recognized for his research accomplishments when he was named a 2015 Goldwater Scholar. He has also received several grants for his research and academic performance, including the American Chemical Society Junior Chemistry Achievement Award, the Gary Booth Chemistry Scholarship, the Sophomore Organic Chemistry Award, and the Goldstein Memorial Mathematics Scholarship. Furthermore, as Morrill Excellence Scholar, Henry serves as an Office of Diversity and Inclusion peer mentor and an Honors peer mentor. After receiving a PhD in theoretical chemistry, he’d like to teach and conduct research developing computational methods to understand the electronic structure of important molecules.