Newsroom
Henry Chang Named Goldwater Scholar
Occidental College junior and Honolulu native Henry H. Chang has been selected as a 2000 Goldwater Scholar, one of 309 undergraduates selected nationwide on the basis of academic merit and the potential to make a significant contribution to his or her field.
Each Goldwater scholarship covers the cost of tuition, room, board and other expenses up to $7,500. Recipients must be nominated by their college or university. Four-year institutions can nominate no more than four candidates who intend to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences, or engineering.
A chemistry major, Chang, 21, the son of Paul and Lucy Chang of Honolulu, is one of only two students from Hawaii to win the prestigious scholarship this year. Under the tutelage of Chemistry Professor Phoebe Dea, he has been studying the mechanisms by which pharmaceutical drugs interact with cells on the molecular level.
“Henry is one of the strongest research students I have had in my 25 years of teaching,” Dea said. “I have every confidence he will develop into an outstanding scientist and leader.”
Chang, a former Hawaii All-State Scholar and winner of a Roosevelt High School Alumni Scholarship, came to Occidental intending to major in physics or biology as a premed.
“But I had a lot of fun in general chemistry as a freshman, and I had a friend who was a Goldwater Scholar two years ago who said, ‘Hey, you ought to try this.’ So I did,” he said.
Today, Chang plans to obtain a doctoral degree in chemistry and pursue a career in chemical pharmacology.
Chang and sophomore Alicia McCarthy are the 19th and 20th Occidental students to win Goldwater Scholarships since 1990.
Located in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, 113-year-old Occidental College is a selective, nationally ranked college of the liberal arts and sciences. Its 1,550-member student body combines diversity with academic excellence, having won three Rhodes scholarships and scores of other national awards over the past 10 years.