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BG student among 12 in Ohio to win Goldwater Scholarship

Molly Markey, a 20-year-old paleobiology and Russian major from Dallas City, Ill., has won a Goldwater Scholarship for the 1999-2000 academic year.

The prestigious award pays up to $7,500 for the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board. It is considered the nation's premier award for undergraduates in mathematics, engineering and the natural sciences.

This year's 304 scholarship winners, of whom 125 are women, were chosen on the basis of academic merit from among 1,181 nominees. Only 12 of the winners attend Ohio colleges and universities. It is the second consecutive year an undergraduate science student at BGSU has won a Goldwater Scholarship.

Markey said she has been interested in paleobiology-the study of ancient life-since she became fascinated by dinosaurs in second grade. BGSU has one of the few, if not the only, structured undergraduate paleobiology program in the nation.

Last summer Markey took part in a 10-week Smithsonian Institution research training program for undergraduates. Her research looked into possible linkages between global climatic changes and fossils of single-cell organisms. She is continuing to gather data to aid in either refuting or supporting her hypothesis that the fossil record can be used to trace changes in climate. The work will be the basis of her senior thesis in the Honors Program.