Honors College Sophomore Wins Goldwater Scholarship
March 28, 2025. University of Memphis sophomore Blake Robinson has been awarded the 2025 Barry Goldwater
Scholarship, one of the oldest and most prestigious scholarships for natural sciences,
engineering, and mathematics students in the United States. This year the Goldwater
Scholarship Foundation awarded 441 new scholarships, selecting scholarship recipients
from a pool of 1,350 outstanding undergraduates nominated by 445 institutions.
Robinson is a chemistry major with a concentration in biochemistry and a minor in psychology. Robinson became involved in research as a first-year student with Joel Bumgardner, professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Memphis. His experience in Dr. Bumgardner鈥檚 lab helped prepare him for a highly competitive NIH Neurological Surgery Summer Research Program at the University of Washington School of Medicine in summer 2024.
While also continuing research in Dr. Bumgardner鈥檚 lab, Robinson is now in his second semester of undergraduate research at St. Jude Children鈥檚 Research Hospital. Most recently, Robinson has been accepted into an undergraduate research program at Harvard University for summer 2025.
Robinson plans to pursue a MD/PhD with a specialization in neuroscience and he aspires to have a career dedicated to developing better treatments for neurological disease. In addition to research experiences at the UofM, as a first-year student, Robinson was awarded the President鈥檚 Leadership Award for Outstanding First Year of Involvement for his research and community service, both on-campus and off-campus.
Melinda Jones, director of the Helen Hardin Honors College and the Goldwater Faculty Representative for the University of Memphis, said 鈥淏lake鈥檚 energy, his initiative and drive, his intellectual curiosity, and his scholastic achievements are all the sorts of things we were dreaming we would find in a candidate to nominate for the Goldwater Scholarship, and which we did indeed find with Blake.鈥�
The Helen Hardin Honors College provides students across campus with assistance as they apply for national, high-level scholarships. For more information, contact Melinda Jones in the Honors College at mljones6@memphis.edu.
For more about the Goldwater Scholarship program, visit .