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Goldman committee names two winners of post-grad prize

By Hailey Mallendick, Senior Staff Writer

Miami's Goldman Prize, one of the highest-paying awards given to U.S. college grads, was awarded to two students this year - the first time this has happened since the prize's inception in 1993.

Abby Lyons, who graduated in December with an early childhood education degree, and Jordan Martin, a senior who is double majoring in biology and psychology with a minor in anthropology, were the recipients of the award. With this, they will each receive a $30,000 prize to conduct the research and complete their proposed projects.

The Johanna Jackson Goldman Memorial Prize was awarded to the two seniors after being selected by the Honors Program Advisory Committee. The prize is one of the largest undergraduate grants in the country and is annually awarded to graduating seniors at Miami who seek to conduct an independent study in the areas of scholarship, journalism or the arts.

"Receiving the Goldman Prize is a tremendous honor and I feel deep gratitude for being given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pursue my dreams," said Martin.

Lyons is working to starting her own year-round study abroad program at Miami. The idea came to her while she was abroad in Belize over the 2014 winter term with Darrel Davis, an assistant professor in the area of instructional technology.

"In an art shop in Belize I told Dr. Davis that I didn't have many classes to take in the spring semester and was fascinated about what I had learned about education, technology and global education," said Lyons. "We started an independent study [after the trip] and we started throwing around ideas about what and how people were learning through their abroad experience."

After conducting the independent study, she got the idea to start a different kind of study abroad program.

"I just realized that through that process of being able to come back then think and talk about my experience and to think about it in a bigger context, that was really influential in helping me bring back what I learned in Belize to my context of teaching and even in my life," said Lyons. "So, I thought about other study abroad experiences where students just go and come back and they have no real space to talk about their ideas."

The program she is creating will be a context-specific, year-long program (fall, winter and spring) and include both a pre-trip class and a post-trip class in which students reflect about their experiences.

Andrew Saultz, an assistant professor in educational leadership and Lyons's adviser for the project, has been assisting her and will continue to do so for the next year.

"Abby is really excited about the research component of the project and what people have studied and the context of study abroad," said Saultz.

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Currently, Lyons is working on her project to get ready for the six-month check, but she hopes to have her program implemented at Miami soon.

"I intend to pilot a program, but it probably wouldn't pilot until fall 2017 if all works out well," said Lyons.

The money from the grant will go toward her pilot program and giving her the time to propose her program to all of the necessary Miami departments.

[media-credit name="Photo by Beth Pfohl" align="aligncenter" width="900"]Goldman 2[/media-credit]

Martin, meanwhile, is working on a research project that will take him to Europe.

Martin chose to focus on a research project on the emotions and personalities of the common marmosets. Common marmosets are a unique breed of monkey that are often very small and known for their unique brown and gray fur, in addition to their different breeding habits.

"I will first be investigating whether common marmosets exhibit empathy and personality, and I will then be assessing how individual differences in empathy and personality affect prosocial behavior," said Martin.

He will be conducting research in Helsinki and Austria over the summer with Sonja Koski, a primatologist. His mentor on campus, Linda Marchant, a professor of anthropology at Miami, connected Martin with Koski.

"I have known Dr. Koski for eight years," said Marchant. "When I realized the potential synergy of Jordan's intellectual interests and Dr. Koski's academic and research accomplishments, I made an 'electronic introduction.'"

After Martin and Koski established a connection, they began to plan the research aspect of his project. They will be working together on the research from June 2016 until June 2017.

Martin is looking forward to the opportunity to work with Koski conducting this research for the next year.

"One of the most exciting aspects of my project is having the opportunity to work at a prestigious research center with a team of personally inspiring scientists from my field," said Martin. "I have no doubt that I will be able to complete my studies with access to and help from these invaluable resources and connections."

Marchant is looking forward to the results and updates from Martin's project.

"His time management skills are quite impressive, there will be manuscripts to write and he simply doesn't wait to the end. I'll get the updates from him," said Marchant. "I'm most excited to see where he will choose to publish … if he chooses to go into anthropology."

After the end of his project, Martin has plans for his future.

"I intend to continue my career as a primatologist and I see my Goldman project as a rare chance to contribute to behavioral science and make a name for myself in my field," said Martin.

Both Martin and Lyons are looking forward to using the prize money to complete their projects in the upcoming year and to pursue their career goals.

"I feel super blessed to be able to pursue something that I am passionate about," said Lyons. "It is super exciting and relieves a lot of stress about what I was going to do in the summer. I was going to work on this project regardless, but now this gives me the time and money to actually do it."

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