Undergraduate Research Accomplishments Accomplishments: 2022 Goldwater Scholarship for UMass Dartmouth's Physics Major

Physics major McKenzie Ferrari ‘23 was named a 2022 Goldwater Scholar, becoming the first recipient of the prestigious recognition in UMass Dartmouth’s history. The highly competitive scholarship was established by Congress in 1986 in honor of Senator Barry Goldwater.

McKenzie was also one of 60 students selected nationwide to participate in the 2022 Council on Undergraduate Research "Posters on the Hill" event. In April 2022 she had the opportunity to present her project titled “Synthetic Spectroscopy of Near-Chandrasekhar Mass Type Ia Supernovae from the Double-Degenerate Channel," which sheds light on the structure of the universe. The following summer, Ferrari was accepted to the Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory REU, one of the most prestigious astrophysics REUs in the nation.