New scholarship stars in Goldwater galaxy

By Hope Green

When Annely Richardson contemplates the future, she dreams of conducting biomedical research to help paraplegics walk.

Rebecca Sansom hopes to teach chemistry at a university and perhaps advance the world's understanding of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Richardson (ENG'02) and Sansom (CAS'01) have good reason to think big. By many accounts the two women are among BU's academic superstars, and now they are national standouts as well.

In early April, Richardson and Sansom learned that they were recipients of a $7,500 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, considered the country's most prestigious award for undergraduates in mathematics, science, and engineering.

Nomination letters to the awards committee paint a picture of two young scientists possessing a maturity beyond their years, each approaching her work with a healthy balance of skepticism and deep curiosity.

"I believe Annely is the kind of student who comes along once in about ten years," wrote Herbert Voigt, ENG associate professor of biomedical engineering and Richardson's advisor. "She strikes me as a genuine leader."

Sansom's advisor, CAS Assistant Professor of Chemistry Amy Mullin, wrote: "Rebecca is literally soaking up the research environment and is blossoming as an independent scientist . . . . I have never met a student like her in my five and a half years of teaching here."

Annely Richardson (left) and Rebecca Sansom Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

Richardson and Sansom are among 309 Goldwater Scholars selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,176 students around the country. They are BU's sixth and seventh undergraduates to receive the award from the Barry M. Goldwater Foundation, which was established in 1986 in honor of the late Republican senator from Arizona.

Always asking why

Richardson grew up in Scituate, Mass., in a family that loves the outdoors. They had a sailboat mooring in Buzzards Bay, and a favorite summer activity was sailing to Cuttyhunk Island, where Richardson explored the beach and climbed trees.

"I was one of those annoying little kids who was always asking why," she says. "I wondered how a tree gets to be a tree, what makes the water go up through the trunk, why a leaf is floppy and a branch is sturdy and stiff. And how a bird can fly -- that always fascinated me."

Richardson describes her first 18 years as happy, marred by two events that brought her search for knowledge into focus: while she was in middle school, one of her grandmothers suffered a massive stroke, and several years later, a good friend was in a serious bicycle accident. Both were left paralyzed.

Driven to thoroughly understand the nerve damage that robbed her grandmother and friend of their mobility, and to help find a cure, Richardson decided to pursue biomedical engineering. Some day, perhaps in a doctoral program, she hopes to investigate the intriguing possibility of nerve regeneration.

"If we can find a way to viably and economically regrow and reconnect damaged nerve tissue, particularly that of the spinal cord, the benefits would be phenomenal," she wrote in her award application.

Since last summer, Richardson has volunteered at the BU School of Medicine biophysics laboratory. There she has impressed the postdoctoral fellows and staff with her interest in amyloid proteins, which are associated with a large group of illnesses, including Alzheimer's disease. Recently she coauthored a paper that was published in an international medical journal.

Despite her devotion to lab research and courses, working as a teaching assistant, serving in student government, and training with the Red Cross disaster relief team in the Back Bay, Richardson has found time to serve as treasurer of BU's Bioethics Club, which she cofounded as a freshman.

"I think that the further you get into technology, the more you need to step back and realize the awesome power you hold," she says. "Biotechnology is great and can solve a lot of problems, but you also need to make sure that what you're doing is in everyone's best interest."

A study in high energy

Sansom heard the news of her Goldwater award in a phone call from her mother, who received the announcement at their home in Simi Valley, Calif.

"She said, 'Hello, my little Goldwater Scholar.' I screamed for awhile -- I couldn't believe it," says Sansom.

It was a historic moment for the family. Sansom's father, who never received a college degree, died from Lou Gehrig's disease when she was seven. Her mother, whose education also stopped at high school (though she recently earned a B.A. in communications), raised Rebecca and her sister on Social Security payments.

With her mother's encouragement, Sansom excelled in the Simi Valley public schools. In high school, she "was involved in everything," especially chorus and Key Club, and started a tutoring program for at-risk students. Now she tutors BU freshmen in chemistry.

"I enjoy teaching because I enjoy learning," she says. "Teaching helps me understand the material better. I like when I'm explaining an idea and somebody finally gets it -- you can see when the lightbulb goes on."

Sansom originally impressed Mullin while doing mundane work-study chores in a chemistry lab. Now she is a contributing member of Mullin's research team. Her experiments focus on the transfer of energy that occurs when superheated molecules collide.

"If you're holding a cup of coffee, your hand warms and the cup cools," Sansom explains. "That's heat transfer. We look at a process sort of like that, but at the molecular level."

Last May, she described her work in considerably more detail at a BU research symposium. The experience was exhilarating, but also "absolutely terrifying," she admits.

"You're locked in a room with a small group of people," she says, "and I was scared they would ask me questions I couldn't answer. Fortunately, that didn't happen because I was well prepared. But I still turned bright red just being there!"

Sansom's credits keep piling up. In March 1999, she participated in an undergraduate session of the American Chemical Society. Like Richardson, she has coauthored a paper for a scientific journal -- an unusual accomplishment for an undergraduate, especially before senior year.

When she is not probing the mysteries of hot molecules and methane energy-flow pathways, Sansom can be found playing the trumpet in BU's pep band or marching with the color guard. She also juggles a minor in philosophy.

"I took a course in the philosophy of human nature as part of the freshman honors program, and I loved it," she says. "It really forced me to think about who I am."