Academic excellence in the sciences recently earned UNC Asheville senior Melinda Beaver a prestigious scholarship from the Barry M. Goldwater and Excellence in Education Foundation. She was one of 309 winners chosen from among 1,155 applicants nationwide. The award, which will partly fund Beaver’s last year at UNCA, provides up to $7,500 for educational expenses, including housing, books and tuition.

A native of Stoney Point, N.C., Beaver, 21, is pursuing a double major in chemistry and environmental science. “I have always been attracted to the sciences,” she said. “I’d rather go work in a lab than write a paper or a poem.”

Working under the guidance of UNCA chemistry professor and department chair Bert Holmes, Beaver is the third of Holmes’ students in as many years to win the coveted award. In Holmes’ lab, Beaver investigates the properties of compounds that are potential replacements for ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The gas-phase reactions of these new compounds are measured to determine how they react as well as how fast they react. This information is related to their environmental impact because the measurements help determine how long the compounds will persist in the atmosphere. Beaver said the most exciting part of the research so far has been helping discover a new reaction pathway for these molecules that no one else had found.

“Melinda has an exceptional chemistry gift,” Holmes said. “In the lab, she always makes the right decisions and moves through the research very quickly. I’ve assigned her to work on a very hard project that I thought would take her two summers, but she only took one.” Beaver presented the project results at a National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Orlando, Fla. this spring.

Beaver will continue her work in the lab this summer as a paid research assistant. She’s also currently working on research papers to submit to the Journal of Physical Chemistry and the Undergraduate Research Journal this fall.