Pitt student named Goldwater Scholar

Pitt student Wen Xu’s daily balancing act of schoolwork, lab research and volunteering has not… Pitt student Wen Xu’s daily balancing act of schoolwork, lab research and volunteering has not gone unnoticed.

Xu, an Honors College junior majoring in neuroscience, received a 2011 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship last month. The nationally competitive scholarship is awarded to students who are pursuing majors in mathematics, science or engineering.

She is the 35th Pitt student to receive the scholarship, which is worth $7,500 and funds senior year expenses.

Judy Zang, director of national scholarships at the Honors College, commended Xu on her work both inside and outside of the classroom.

“She represents the best of Pitt’s students. But the neat thing about Wen is she’s not just super in working in the forefront of the field in her research, but she is also connected to the Pitt community in her leadership activities,” Zang said. “What also made Wen an outstanding candidate for this award was that she not only demonstrated a unique understanding of the different technologies involved in her research, but a genuine excitement about the possibilities of collaborative research on peripheral nerve repair across the sciences.”

To receive the scholarship, students first had to be nominated by their university. Zang said a campus selection committee made up of faculty representatives chose four nominees from Pitt to go on to the national scholarship competition.

“I was very surprised actually,” Xu said about receiving the scholarship. “I was pretty much happy with the fact that I had made it past the University round. Receiving this is quite an honor.”

Xu, from McCandless Township in Allegheny County, plans to enroll in medical school after graduation from Pitt and hopes to pursue a career in translational neuroscience or neurobiology. She took the MCATs two weeks ago.

“I believe that [the scholarship] will be really important when I apply to medical schools, since it is such a prestigious scholarship. It will reflect on my abilities to conduct research,” she said.

It was the summer after her freshman year when Xu first applied to the Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh’s Summer Student Research Training Program and was paired up with Dr. Yong Li in his laboratory of molecular pathology.

After the Children’s Hospital moved to Lawrenceville, Li’s lab stayed at Pitt, so Xu was able to remain on campus to continue her research.

“I was very lucky,” she said.

In the lab, Xu currently works on a signaling project, which focuses on the nerve aspects of functional recovery.

“If you injure the muscle and the nerve, how do you get the [nerve] to reintegrate with the muscle target?” This was the driving question behind the study, she said.

The team works to isolate sources of stem cells and muscles that could be stimulated to differentiate — allowing them to aid in repairing neuron-muscle linkages.

Xu said she spends about five hours a week in the lab during the school year and works there full time over the summer.

Li described Xu as “smart and easygoing.”

“She is very friendly to all other lab persons,” he said.

Outside of the lab, Xu is the co-executive vice president of Pitt’s National Society of Collegiate Scholars, a member of French Club and Habitat For Humanity and a teaching assistant for Organic Chemistry 2.

She volunteers at UPMC Presbyterian and Montefiore hospitals, a service she has been involved in since her freshman year in high school.

“I’ve known for quite a while I wanted to do something in medicine,” she said. “I volunteered every summer at Allegheny General Hospital, and it really cemented my interest. “

Xu cites Freddie Fu, chairman of Pitt’s department of orthopedic surgery and head team physician for the Steelers, as her role model.

Fu is a pioneer in a specific type of knee reconstruction surgery, called the double bundle, which repairs torn anterior cruciate ligaments — better known as ACLs.

After Fu heard that Xu received the Goldwater Scholarship, he invited her to the Orthopedic Grand Round and introduced her to everyone there, she said.

“Knowing that he was so accomplished, he was very chill and laid back,” Xu said. “If I could be like that someday, it’d be cool.”

When asked how she balances all of her activities, Xu said she sets out times to do specific things so she can focus on one task at a time.

“On Monday I will focus on purely two subjects and won’t worry about a paper I’m writing for Wednesday,” she said. “If you start to think about everything at once, it gets overwhelming.”

The Goldwater Scholarship was established in 1986 in honor of former Sen. Barry M. Goldwater, R-Ariz. The participants were selected on the basis of academic merit.

Xu said scholarship hopefuls were asked to submit recommendations from a research mentor and two science professors, as well as a two-page paper of proposed future work.

Lucy Decher, administration officer for the foundation, said this year’s 275 recipients were selected by a group of experts and independent scholars from around the United States. The selection committee meets annually in Arizona to read through more than 1,000 applicant essays to make a selection.