Passionate about Earth Sciences?
AWIS’s Kirsten R. Lorentzen Award will provide $2,000 to a female
undergraduate studying physics, geophysics, or geoscience
to further her career in the field.
2023 Applications are now closed!
Kirsten R. Lorentzen Award
Scholarship Overview
The Kirsten R. Lorentzen Award is an AWIS Educational Foundation program for female college sophomores and juniors studying physics, including space physics and geophysics, or geoscience. The award in the amount of $2,000 is given annually to an exceptionally well-rounded student who excels in her studies as well as outdoor activities, service, sports, music, or other non-academic pursuits or who has overcome significant obstacles. The award is administered by SPS and may be used for any aspect of education, including tuition, books, housing, or travel, for example.
Scholarship At A Glance
- One $2,000 award will be made each year
- Awarded to a female student in her sophomore or junior year of study
- Awarded to an exceptionally well-rounded student who excels in her studies as well as outdoor activities, service, sports, music, or other non-academic pursuits or who has overcome significant obstacles
- The Kirsten R. Lorentzen Award is an Association for Women in Science (AWIS) Educational Foundation program administered by SPS.
Scholarship Requirements
Applicants will need to provide:
- Unofficial Transcripts
- Outline of the physics and related courses
- Written statement of career objectives
- Written statement of participation in SPS activities
- Written statement providing evidence of being an exceptionally well-rounded female student
- Certification from the Department Chair
- Two letters of recommendation from faculty members
Previous Scholarship Recipients
Kate Pletcher
2022 Scholarship Recipient
Kate Pletcher will enter her senior year at the University of Denver (DU) where she’s pursuing a double major in physics and mathematics, with a minor in computer science. She has been a Society of Physics Students (SPS) member since her freshman year at DU and loved building a tight-knit physics community as well as participating in outreach with the local schools. She has happily held the position as social media manager of our SPS chapter for over a year and was recently elected as president. For the past three years, she’s worked with the Siemens Research Lab, researching stability of tilted optical vortices in laser beams. Her next step is to attend graduate school with the goal of becoming a physics professor. Pletcher is very passionate about teaching and accessibility in the sciences, therefore, she hopes to someday foster classroom environments where all feel welcome and empowered to learn physics. Outside of physics, she is the president of the club curling team at DU, and a member of the Tactile Art Community, which is lovingly referred to as “finger painting club.” In her free time, she’s learning to crochet and enjoys exploring the beauty of Colorado!
Makyla Boyd
2021 Scholarship Recipient
Makyla Boyd is a senior at Coe College pursuing a degree in physics. She is also involved in the music program at Coe. She is the current president of Coe College’s Physics Club, vice president of the WinSTEM Club, and secretary of the Mu Phi chapter. This past summer, she completed a WAVE fellowship at Caltech which aims to foster diversity by increasing the participation of underrepresented students in science and engineering Ph.D. programs and making Caltech’s programs more visible and accessible to students not traditionally exposed to Caltech. She plans to continue her education by going to graduate school and earning a Ph.D. in either material science or mechanical engineering.
Sophie Weiss
2020 Scholarship Recipient
Sophie Weiss will start Fall of 2020 as a Senior majoring in Physics. She came to Coe College in 2019 as a transfer student after receiving her AS from Cottey College. At Coe, she is grateful to be Publicity Chair for WinSTEM, an athlete on the Cross Country and Track and Field Team, Resident Whiteboard Artist of the Physics Lounge, and member of our SPS chapter — helping set up our ice cream socials and running a booth for our Playground of Science outreach. Sophie also had the great opportunity to attend Physcon 2019, which really made her realize how great it is to be a physics major. She has previously held research positions at The University of Missouri (Chem. Engineering), Cottey College (Biology), Brown University (Chemistry), and now Coe College for Physics. She hopes to continue to do research in graduate school. Sophie really values outreach in Science, so wherever her career path leads, industry, academia, working for an organization, etc., she wants to give back and be sure that the next group of students have the mathematical and technical skills and the support they need, to do well in Physics.
Alexandra Detweiler
2019 Scholarship Recipient
Alexandra Detweileram is a fourth year physics and astrophysics undergraduate student at the Illinois Institute of Technology, also enrolled in their co-terminal health physics master’s degree program. She currently serves as president of Illinois Tech’s SPS chapter, and it has proved to be the most rewarding leadership opportunity she has been involved in. As president, Alexandra focuses on fostering a familial and encouraging atmosphere within Illinois Tech’s small physics department through events like movie nights, physics-themed game nights (particularly Pictionary, which has become a fast favorite), and department-wide luncheons. Outside of physics, she is interested in music, philosophy, reading, and writing. Among many other things, physics has taught her that things that seem quite daunting at first are often more doable than they seem. For example, at the start of her sophomore year of college, Alexandra began taking private lessons on the French horn, and it’s now a serious passion of mine. Quite recently, She’s been teaching herself how to knit and crochet, and she now has many different scarves and hats to show for it. Last year, she completed National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and she plans to do the same this year. In years to come, her goal is to learn another language and read as many books as humanly possible.
Sophia Sánchez-Maes
2018 Scholarship Recipient
Sophia Sánchez-Maes’ world line originates in the New Mexico borderlands. A scientific realist working in mathematical relativity, her current theoretical research probes whether spacetime might have an exotic topology. She is employed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she works to find and characterize worlds beyond our solar system. In her continuing geological work in conjunction with mentor Jun Korenaga, she showed that water is a necessary but insufficient condition for plate tectonics; making surface oceans a potential geologic observable for exo-earths. She has also served as principal investigator on a NASA Space grant investigating stellar activity, and written code for the Mars Rover. For her work, she has been designated an NSF Young Scholar, received the international Guiseppe Sciacca early-career prize for research, presented her findings to President Barack Obama, and was awarded the National Jefferson Award for greatest public service by an individual 25 or under. A member of Timothy Dwight college at Yale University, she is candidate for double major in physics (int.) and astrophysics. She will pursue a Ph.D. and continue into a career in physics as a researcher. She writes for the scientific magazine and is president of the Yale Society of Physics Students. She makes habit of reading short stories, writing science fiction, and keeping written correspondence.
Elizabeth Cady van Assendelft
2017 Scholarship Recipient
Hi, I’m Cady! This fall, I’ll be a rising junior at Yale University, where I’m pursuing a degree in Physics. I’m one of the co-presidents of the Yale SPS chapter, and I’ve also been involved with the Women in Physics group on campus. For the past two years, I have attended the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics. This year, I also began research in the Moore group at Wright Lab, where I work on the levitated microspheres project—developing gravitational attractors to test gravitational interactions on microscopic scales. Outside of the physics world, I am also an avid rock climber and co-captain of the Yale Climbing Team. I love both indoor competition climbing and outdoor trips; I’ve climbed in places ranging from Oregon to West Virginia! During the school year, I play flute and arrange music for the Davenport Pops Orchestra, a student-led group on campus. I also work in the IT department through the Student Technology Collaborative. My future plans definitely involve graduate school for physics and more climbing adventures!
Claire Baum
2016 Scholarship Recipient
As of this year, I will be a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign pursuing a major in physics and a minor in mathematics. Since my freshman year, I have been involved in the Society of Physics Students (SPS), the Society for Women in Physics (SWIP), research on the Muon g-2 and CDF experiments at Fermilab, and have recently become involved in research for the Any Light Particle Search (ALPS) experiment at DESY. Outside of physics, I have dipped into some other fun activities such as archery, swing dancing, and being a DJ! In 2014, I helped plan the SPS Zone 8 Meeting at my university and became an unofficial officer of our SPS chapter midway through the year. As all of our officers were already decided during the previous year, I was quickly dubbed the SPS “snack officer” (even though I do more than provide delicious snacks!). This year, I will be president of SWIP and remain on the board for SPS. In years to come beyond my undergraduate degree, I would love to pursue a PhD somewhere within the realm of optical physics, travel the world, and maybe become a crazy inventor at some point!
Claire M. Weaver
2015 Scholarship Recipient
Once an instructor on the Flying Trapeze and world traveler, I sought to push myself to my physical limits. Now, my sense of exploration has refocused on knowledge as I push the limits of my mind. I am a Physics and Math double major at Hofstra University and I am currently working on an independent study using group theory and symmetry to explore topological insulators. This summer I will be conducting research in the field of nano-photonics and nano-plasmonics, tailoring light-matter interactions using metal-dielectric nanostructures, at the Advanced Science Research Center in Manhattan. I have enjoyed furthering the development of camaraderie within Hofstra’s Physics community as president of SPS and as I advance through my career I look forward to mentoring the next generation of brilliant minds.
Angela Ludvigsen
2014 Scholarship Recipient
I am a rising junior at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls, majoring in physics and mathematics. I was recently inducted into Sigma Pi Sigma and look forward to being a part of that organization. I will be serving as VP of our local chapter of the Society of Physics Students. One of my favorite SPS activities has been outreach to young women to inspire them to pursue a career in science. I have tutored physics and math and will be the manager of the Physics Study Center in the coming academic year. I am a McNair Scholar and the president of SURSCA, a student organization that reviews and approves student applications for research grants. I currently am involved research Sizing Optically Trapped Water Droplets Using Cavity Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy at UWRF and this summer will be working in an REU at Michigan State on Exciton-spin interactions in dilute magnetic semiconductor quantum dots. In my spare time, I enjoy diving, origami, and playing my violin.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to our featured partners for their support of AWIS and the AWIS Foundation Awards.
We would also like to thank the Scholarship Committee for the administration of these programs.
We are grateful for all AWIS donors and supporters for helping women in science and related STEM fields achieve their dreams and reach their full potential.
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