Holy Cross Math Student Receives Prestigious Goldwater Scholarship

WORCESTER, Mass. – Renee Laverdiere, a junior at the College of the Holy Cross from Eliot, Maine, has won a Goldwater Scholarship, one of only 323 undergraduates nationally to receive the award from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. This year’s scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from more than 1,000 mathematics, science, and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide.

The one- and two-year scholarships will cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.

Laverdiere is majoring in mathematics with a philosophy minor. She has been a Dana Scholar the past two years, is a member of the Pi Mu Epsilon math honor society, the Phi Sigma Tau philosophy honor society, and the College Honors Program. This summer, she will participate in the College’s undergraduate research program, working full time with Professor Thomas Cecil in differential geometry. She will conduct independent research in matrix groups from algebraic and geometric perspectives as a foundation for work in Lie sphere geometry.

Her career objective is to receive a Ph.D. and teach on the college level. "I very much would like to teach at a college like Holy Cross, where there’s a small community and close student-faculty relationships," she says. "I want to work directly with students as well as conduct research." Her interests and activities on campus reflect that desire: she has been a mathematics teaching assistant in the Passport Program, a calculus tutor, an orientation leader during Gateways, a Manresa retreat leader, and student coordinator in the Lilly Endowment-funded journaling and reflection program.

She is a graduate of Marshwood High School in South Berwick, Maine, where she was valedictorian.

The Goldwater Foundation is a federally endowed agency established in 1986. The foundation’s Scholarship Program honoring Senator Barry M. Goldwater was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields.