Junior Judah Nava nominated for Goldwater Scholarship
MSUM junior Judah Nava has been nominated for the 2024 Barry Goldwater Scholarship. The Goldwater Scholarship is an award for students planning to pursue careers in science, math and engineering. Students are nominated for this scholarship based on their academic performance, involvement in research, and plans to pursue postgraduate degrees. Winners are expected to be announced at the end of March.
Judah, a graduate of Dallas (Ore.) High School, is majoring in computer science. He has been conducting research with computer science Professor Dr. Hanku Lee since 2021 and is also the president of MSUM’s student organization, the Association of Computing Machinery. Judah and Dr. Lee’s research focuses on making distributed computing more accessible for researchers with no background in computer science, giving researchers in any field the ability to process data more quickly and efficiently. They are also testing and comparing cloud storage and local storage capabilities and working on upgrading Python, a commonly used programming language to process data faster.
Judah has always had a passion for computers and experimenting with technology. “I was always tinkering with my electronics… I’d break the motors thinking I could put them back together,” Judah said.
Although Judah didn’t initially consider a career in research, he loves learning and has found research to be the most effective way for him to learn. “No matter what I do, I’ll always be in pursuit of knowledge, and this research has taught me how to do that best,” he said.
Judah is looking to attend an Ivy League school upon graduation. The Goldwater Scholarship nomination and possible award would help him in that journey.
Judah’s parents are Robert Nava and Cassandra and Steven Futrell.