Cameron Owen - Churchill Scholar

Cameron Owen — Fourth Consecutive Churchill Scholarship Winner

Cameron Owen arrived at the University of Utah from Boise, Idaho, with only $10,000 in scholarship support for his next four years at the U. Just seven months later, Owen was an undergraduate member of the Armentrout Research Group departing for an all-expenses-paid research trip to the Netherlands. As Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Cameron was drawn to the U by its science reputation but it was a recruiting presentation by Chemistry Professor Tom Richmond that sealed the deal. “His presentation was incredible,” remembers Owen. “I was so inspired… I tried to introduce myself on the spot.”

Owen credits his freshman experience in the Honors 2019 Undergraduate Research Scholar Award recipient in the College and specifically the Honors Science Cohort as College of Science. “instrumental to my success.” Owen remembers, “One class assignment was to find a professor on campus, read some of their research and ask for a lab tour. I chose Peter Armentrout in the Chemistry Department.”

Owen’s research trip to the Netherlands was funded by the U.S. the National Science Foundation’s MSPIRE Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. He worked directly with Joost Bakker on the FELICE molecular beam apparatus as well as other lab staff at FELIX, at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Armentrout and Owen collaborated closely for much of the visit. They repeated the trip in the summer of 2018.

In March of his junior year (2018), Owen was awarded the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. Then, in January of this year, Owen was selected for a Churchill Scholarship. He is one of only 15 students nationally to receive the award this year and is the fourth consecutive Churchill scholar from the U.

“Cameron’s achievement is a testament to his scientific curiosity and diligence in his undergraduate research,” said Dan Reed, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. “A fourth Churchill Scholarship award demonstrates the value of undergraduate research and mentorship experiences at the U, and that our students are among the best and brightest in the world.”

In May, Owen graduated from the U with an honors BS degree in Chemistry, a BS in Physics, and a minor in Mathematics. He also was named the

2019 Undergraduate Research Scholar Award recipient in the College of Science. This fall, Cameron departs for the University of Cambridge in England to begin his studies as a Churchill Scholar. He is remarkably down to earth for an international scholar – the previous two trips to the Netherlands makes this only the fourth time that Owen has travelled outside the US.