Junior Benjamin Gordon and sophomore Stanley F. Steers were awarded the Barry M. Goldwater… Junior Benjamin Gordon and sophomore Stanley F. Steers were awarded the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for their research in the fields of engineering and physics, respectively.

The prestigious award is meant to identify and support the education of undergraduate students involved in the sciences and to provide the United States with a constant influx of innovative and capable engineers, physicists and mathematicians.

Gordon and Steers certainly fit those requirements.

A mechanical engineer, Gordon works on the conversion of thermal acoustic energies, changing sound energy into heat energy and back again. Fascinated by the Mars pathfinder missions he read about in high school, Gordon decided to major in aerospace engineering.

Transferring to Pitt, however, meant a switch in concentrations because Pitt does not offer an aerospace engineering major.

“Mechanical engineering is the closest thing to aerospace engineering, and it has more job opportunities,” Gordon said. “Aerospace engineering is sort of a feast or famine thing.”

Beside classes and his research, Gordon is a member of the National Society for Black Engineers, a mentor for the RISE and Excel programs, and he used to be in the intramural basketball league.

In Posvar, shaking hands, trading hellos and chatting with numerous people, it was easy to understand Gordon’s aptitude for mentoring. Having had several mentors, Gordon believes in giving back.

“That’s how everything gets done,” he said. “You stand on the shoulders of your predecessors. It’s how knowledge gets passed on. And then you build and expand on it, that’s how you move forward.”

Gordon’s formidable confidence is also central to his work.

“You have to believe in yourself, and you have to put in hard work. If you have those two things, it’s going to be hard to stop you,” Gordon said. “You can get whatever you want. I went further than I ever expected. I went further than I ever wanted.”

Beside the commonalities of being male and being Pitt students, Benjamin Gordon and Stanley Steers share an air of assured confidence. After mentioning New Hampshire’s lack of state income tax and sales tax, Steers rounded out his list of the state’s five best assets with “Stanley F. Steers. New Hampshire has Stanley F. Steers.”

A sophomore physics and music major, Steers was awarded the Goldwater Scholarship for his work studying turbulence in two-dimensional soap films.

“Nothing is really a two-dimensional flow,” Steers said, “but sometimes in a two-dimensional flow, two dimensions are so large that the third can be conceptually ignored.”

Steers’ research may seem as if it has no direct application. However, the atmosphere can be considered a two-dimensional flow, as its surface area is much greater than its kilometer thickness. Thus, observing turbulence in soap films can contribute to studying storms in the earth’s atmosphere.

An oboe player in the orchestra, a role as a psychologist on Pitt’s winning Mock Trial team, a physicist, researcher and an ardent admirer of Indiana Jones, Steers is “quite busy.” But his focus seems honed in on his work in physics.

Calmly explaining the intricacies of his research, namedropping prominent physicists and their research the way most people reference YouTube, Steers explained his goal. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say revolutionize the field, but I want to advance it, to bring a fresh approach. I’d like to contribute something significant to the field in terms of new experimental theoretical approaches.