Alumna Awarded Prestigious NSF Fellowship

In a big year for Schmid College, alumna Elizabeth Berrigan ’14 was among the few awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in Physics and Astronomy – Theoretical Physics.

NSF bestowed the grants to only the top 7% of applicants from an already elite pool. Berrigan, who double-majored in Physics and Biochemistry at Schmid College, said she felt Chapman University played a significant role in her success.

“I did a lot of research, including researching entanglement at the Institute for Quantum Studies. I learned how to be a scientist there.” Berrigan said.

While Berrigan’s goal is to keep doing research, she said she is also interested in science education and community outreach. Berrigan tutored students, lectured class review sessions and involved herself in numerous academic societies. Outside of the Chapman community, Berrigan aided elementary and high school children with classwork, organization and advice for the future.

And Berrigan seems to need little advice for her own future.

“I would like to study the emergent properties of entanglement in quantum many-body systems,” Berrigan said.

If you have no idea what that means, take solace in the fact that Berrigan currently attends SUNY at Stonybrook with a Turner Fellowship—a distinguished, exclusive scholarship.

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