Through Plinko Board of UC, Scholarship Winner Finds His Research Niche
Brad Theilman, a double biomedical engineering and mathematics major, received the Goldwater Scholarship for his academic achievements and research interests in neurological networks.
Brad Theilman was in the middle of his partial differential equations class when his cellphone buzzed. A quick glance at the text—and Theilman found it very hard to concentrate on the sample problem at hand.| Brad Theilman |
The message was from Pam Person, with UC’s Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, notifying Theilman that he’d been named a 2012 Goldwater Scholar, the premiere scholarship award for undergraduates majoring in science, engineering and mathematics.
“I called my mom after class to tell her,” remembers Theilman, “She kind of flipped out.”
With the Goldwater scholarship, Theilman, a pre-junior studying biomedical engineering and mathematics, will receive up to $7,500 for up to two years to cover college expenses. The scholarship was created to honor Senator Barry M. Goldwater and is awarded annually to sophomores and juniors who intend to pursue research-oriented careers in mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering.
Theilman was the first student to win such an award since the Office of Nationally Competitive awards was created in 2011. He worked with Person to create his application and personal essays for the scholarship, and says the work was a learning process.
“It forced me to examine what I want to do after my undergraduate work and what I want my research to be about,” says Theilman. “That was a great experience for me—to learn what I want to do and how to make it happen.”
His goal is to become a research professor studying how information is processed in biological neural networks. It’s an interest that grew from his passion for computers, which began as early as third grade.
“Humans can build computers that do wonderful things,” he says, “but the human mind doesn’t work anything like a computer and it can solve problems that no computer can solve. I’m fascinated by the fact that we have no unified idea of how information is processed in the brain.”
He hopes to use the principles of mathematics and physics to understand how the brain processes and interprets data like sensory information into thoughts and behavior.
“Brad is just an outstanding student – top notch,” says Person. “What makes him stand out, though, is his research focus. It’s a long-term goal with an interdisciplinary approach.”
Theilman credits UC for providing him with that interdisciplinary outlook in his studies, helping to channel his many interests into a unique focus.
“I owe a lot to UC for helping me truly discover what I was interested in,” says Theilman. “Through the engineering and honors programs, I had so many opportunities to learn about a variety of areas—if you think about it like a Plinko board, I came into college in a random direction, and then UC arranged all the spikes in such a way that I found my place and where I really wanted to be.”
“Brad is a truly deserving selection for the Goldwater Scholarship,” says UC President Gregory H. Williams. “Our entire UC community shares a sense of pride in his accomplishments, and I am delighted for him in a personal sense. As a student worker for the Office of the President, he has shown me that he is a not only a very smart guy but also a team player and very personable. I have every confidence that he has a very promising future ahead.”
At UC, Theilman is a member of the University Honors Program, which comprises the top 5 percent of UC’s undergraduate students. As a freshman, he received a Cincinnatus scholarship award of $80,000 over four years to pay for tuition, room and board, books and fees.
Outside of his academic interests, Theilman serves as president of UC’s amateur radio club and regularly uses amateur radios to talk with people far away from UC’s uptown campus. He says there’s an informal challenge among club members to see how far they can reach over the airwaves.
“I’ve learned a lot about other people by talking with them directly over the radio,” says Theilman. “You never know who you’re going to reach. My friends and I were operating one of our radios on the roof of Old Chemistry one night and ended up talking with someone in the Canary Islands.”
This summer, Theilman will be talking with scientists closer than that, as an undergraduate scholar at Janelia Farm Research Campus, a biomedical research center and part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Ashburn, Va.