For the second year in a row, all four of Cornell Universities nominees to the national competition for the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship have won the prestigious award. The four Cornell winners in the 1999 scholarship competition are: Joshua Ladau, a junior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Michael Seidman, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences; Christopher Solomon, a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; and Debra Urken, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.

"We are extremely pleased that four of our students have won Goldwater scholarships this year, the second consecutive year for this distinguished honor," said Cornell President Hunter Rawlings. "The awards are testimony to the high quality of Cornell students and to the superb mentoring they receive from Cornell's faculty."

Since 1992, Cornell students have garnered 18 Goldwater scholarships. In the past three years, one winner went on to be chosen for the Rhodes Scholarship, two won Marshall Scholarships, one a Churchill Scholarship and one a Hertz Fellowship.

This year's 304 Goldwater scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,181 mathematics, science and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide.

The Goldwater Scholarship Program, created by a federally endowed agency established to honor U.S. Sen. Barry M. Goldwater, is designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. The scholarship, the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields, covers the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board, up to a maximum of $7,500 a year.

Joshua Ladau, an entomology major, has been studying crickets and gaining a thorough understanding of how certain ambidextrous crickets compose their songs, in collaboration with Cornell postdoctoral student Andrew Mason in the laboratory of Ronald Hoy, professor of neurobiology and behavior.

In the summer of 1998, Ladau conducted research on the insects as an intern at the Archbold Biological Station, an independent, nonprofit research facility in Lake Placid, Fla. He also has worked in the laboratory of Thomas Eisner, Cornell's J.G. Schurman Professor of Entomology, studying phasmid egg dispersal.

A graduate of South Eugene High School in Eugene, Ore., Ladau is quick to explain why he aims to be an entomologist: "Insects are my passion in life. The first word I ever said was 'moth,'" he recalls. "It's what I love doing. One thing I like about insects is that they are so diverse; I'll never be bored with them. There's always something new."

While in high school, Ladau attended the University of Oregon and Lane Community College. He also was a National Merit Scholar and a finalist in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. At Cornell, he has made the dean's list in all of his semesters and is an Ann S. Bower Cornell Presidential Research Scholar. He also received an American Wildlife Research Foundation Research Grant to fund his research on crickets.

In addition to his academic work, Ladau is a member of the Golden Key honor society; Ho Nun De Kah, an honor society for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; and the Obsidians Outdoors Club.

A biochemistry major, Michael Seidman is looking ahead to graduate study in molecular medicine and gene therapy. He calls the Goldwater Scholarship "an overwhelming honor for me, one which strongly reaffirms my intentions to pursue a career in scientific research."

A 1996 graduate of Pennsylvania's Springfield Township High School, he already has conducted genetic research, working last summer at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center on the cell biology of the adenovirus used in gene therapy and at Polyprobe Inc. in Philadelphia on the development of an enhanced DNA probe assay. At Cornell, Seidman continues his research in the laboratory of John Lis, professor of biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, focusing on protein-protein interactions in gene regulation.

Previous honors to Seidman include the A.W. Laubengayer Prize in Freshman Chemistry, the Abraham and Ellen Neuwirth Cornell Tradition Fellowship and the Ellen Jeanne Goldfarb Memorial Dean's Scholarship, as well as election as a College of Arts and Sciences College Scholar and College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Scholar. Seidman has been on the dean's list every semester since arriving at Cornell, but he's also active outside the classroom. He is a member of the Big Red Marching Band and treasurer of the Big Red Pep Band, a volunteer for the American Red Cross and University Health Services, treasurer of the Cornell Undergraduate Research Board and president of the Student Health Alliance.

The environment is the passion of Christopher Solomon, a natural resources major whose goal is to be a professor teaching in the area of natural resources and researching the aquatic ecology of inland waters.

Aboard a New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit trawler this past summer, Solomon worked to keep tabs on two types of endangered fish in the Hudson River: the short-nose sturgeon and the Atlantic sturgeon. The research was funded mostly by a grant from the Hudson River Foundation, a private nonprofit group. Among his several duties as research assistant to Mark Bain, Cornell professor of natural resources, was tagging fish and recording their travel progress to obtain population estimates and other information used in helping to protect and manage their populations.

This summer, Solomon will be working for the Nature Conservancy at an outpost known as Laguna Madre, near San Antonio, Texas. There he will help develop plans to protect the rare hypersaline lagoon ecosystem and associated species, such as ocelots and aplomado falcons.

Solomon says he became interested in natural resources while he was a student at Coventry High School, in Coventry, Conn., and a member of the school's Envirothon environmental-competition team. He later became the team's captain and went on to be a two-time national Envirothon champion.

At Cornell, Solomon his been on the dean's list every semester and is a Cornell National Scholar. In addition to his academic interests, he plays percussion in the Cornell Symphony Orchestra.

Since Solomon has won the Goldwater scholarship in his sophomore year, he will receive two years of undergraduate support from the foundation.

Debra Urken is a psychology major with long-range plans to conduct university-based research in neuroscience. "I'm interested in investigating some of the broad, philosophical questions of how the brain produces mental states," she says. "The Goldwater award will ease the financial burden of my undergraduate studies, making it easier to pursue graduate work later on."

The 1996 graduate of Millburn (N.J.) High School currently is studying abroad in Oxford University's Pembroke College. At Cornell, her undergraduate research has been conducted with Barbara Finlay, professor of psychology, and Ronald Harris-Warrick, professor of neurobiology and behavior. Last summer she worked in the Salk Institute laboratory of Dr. Thomas Albright, collecting data from extracellular recordings of the primate brain, writing computer programs and helping train primates. While in San Diego, she found time to collaborate with University of California Professor Patricia Churchland; the result was a co-authored chapter on neural plasticity in Churchland's new book, Ten Outstanding Questions in Neuroscience.

Urken has served as founder and president of the Cornell Mind-Brain-Behavior Society, a writer for both the Cornell Daily Sun and Cornell Science and Technology Magazine, a freshman orientation counselor, a mathematics tutor and secretary of her residence hall's governing body. She has been on the dean's list every semester and last year won a College Scholar Summer Research Grant.