Ohio Northern University student Zachary Dunn, a senior ACS chemistry and applied physics double major with an astronomy minor and an education concentration, has been selected as a Goldwater Scholar by the trustees of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. This marks the eighth consecutive year that Ohio Northern students have received this honor, the premier undergraduate award of its type in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering.

A native of Harrod, Dunn was honored for his Goldwater research essay, “Photovoltaic Devices Based on Porphyrin Polymeric Donor Materials: A Computational Study of Linker Effects.” Dunn is conducting this research at ONU under the guidance of Dr. Trilisa Perrine, assistant professor of chemistry. Dunn presented this research three times last fall: at the Midwestern Symposium on Undergraduate Research in Chemistry at Michigan State University, the Joint Midwest/Great Lakes Regional ACS Meeting in St. Louis, and the ONU Chemistry Department Student Research Poster Session.

He will present further research on this project at the ONU Student Research Colloquium and the University of Kentucky Regional Poster Competition this spring. Dunn conducted research with two other Ohio Northern University professors prior to working on his current research project. With Dr. Christopher Bowers, an associate professor of chemistry, he conducted analytical chemistry research. With Dr. Jeffrey Gray, professor of chemistry and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, he conducted experimental physical chemistry research.

Established in 1986 to honor Sen. Barry M. Goldwater, the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation fosters and encourages outstanding students to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. Since its first award in 1989, the Foundation has bestowed more than 6,600 scholarships worth approximately $50 million.

For the 2012-13 academic year, the Foundation awarded approximately 300 scholarships to undergraduate sophomores and juniors from the United States. The Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,095 students nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide.