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ATLANTA — Among the recipients of the 2024 Barry Goldwater Scholarship are two promising researchers in neuroscience and biology — Georgia State students Sara Guedez Suarez and Rashawn Thomas.
They are among the 438 college students around the country awarded the Goldwater prize for outstanding scholars pursuing research in the fields of natural sciences, engineering or mathematics. These prestigious 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.
Both are first-generation Honors College students who joined the workforce before pursuing their undergraduate degrees.
Sara Guedez Suarez, Atlanta Campus
For years, Guedez Suarez worked in healthcare jobs and cleaned offices at night to pay for college. She said the Goldwater scholarship is an affirmation that she belongs in research.
“I worked in the healthcare field for about five years after I graduated from high school. I did well and have always loved science and the health sciences,” she said. “I realized I have this drive to get closer to the problem-solving portion of medicine.”
It was while taking an abnormal psychology course at Chattahoochee Technical College that she realized her passion for research. Her psychology professor encouraged her to explore neuroscience.
As a Georgia State student, Guedez Suarez found a home in the university’s Neuroscience Institute labs. She is exploring the nature of sex differences in the neural bases of social and emotional behavior in rodents, and hopes her research will ultimately result in a better understanding of how and where sex differences exist in the regulation of social behavior.
She’ll graduate with a bachelor’s degree in May 2025 and ultimately hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience. The Goldwater Scholarship will help continue her research on a graduate level.
“Sara receiving this scholarship is a great honor for her, one that both affirms her exceptional abilities and drive, and strongly supports her future career as an outstanding neuroscientist,” said Aras Petrulis, a professor of neuroscience and psychology and associate director of GSU’s Neuroscience Institute, who is Guedez Suarez’s faculty mentor.
Rashawn Thomas, Perimeter College
In 2020, Rashawn Thomas moved home to be a full-time caretaker for her ill mother. When nurses visited their home, Thomas noticed a difference between “nurses who engaged with my mom and talked and laughed, and those who just spoke to me.”
After her mother died, Thomas applied to Perimeter College and enrolled in the Health Professions Pathway, with an initial desire to go into the nursing program. Through an Honors course in anatomy and physiology, she discovered her passion for research.
Her honors research project, under the direction of Assistant Professor of Biology Cynthia Foote, was to look at a specific disease and explain what it does to the body, Thomas said. In a Google search to choose her research topic, Thomas found Dermatomyositis (also known as DM) and based her research study on understanding the disease.
“The symptoms were vague — muscle fatigue and skin rash. And I thought that can’t be all there is. Who even notices I am tired today and I have a rash on my arm? I picked DM because I wanted to learn more about it,” she said. “And as I learned more about it, I learned how little we know about it. I knew there was a need for a different study, which would include a wider and more diverse demographic.”
A trip to Chile during a Georgia State study-abroad trip last summer sparked another research interest for Thomas — astrobiology, which she plans to study next year as a student on the Atlanta Campus.
“My research path will be through biology and microbiology studying the smallest of life,” Thomas said. “It’s so exciting.”
“I am excited for Rashawn. She has such a bright future ahead of her,” Foote said. “I just know she will make many important discoveries and help many people with her research. Her excitement about her research project shines through every time we meet.”
Story by Rebecca Rakoczy
Photos by Bill Roa and Carolyn Richardson