There are people who know a little about many things. There are people who know a lot about a few things.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s Matt Correnti.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s someone who knows a lot about many things,\u201d says Lon Knight, Charles Ezra Daniel professor chemistry and chair of the department.<\/p>\n
Correnti, a native of Springfield, Pa., graduated in May as a triple major, earning degrees in chemistry, mathematics and physics. He actually stayed a fifth year to polish off the math degree.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a decision he\u2019s glad he made. \u201cI like to dip my hands in a lot of different pies,\u201d he says. And he did it all while maintaining a perfect 4.00 grade point average.<\/p>\n
Correnti came to Furman in 2008, following in the footsteps of his sister, Christina \u201907. He says many students from his hometown, a suburb of Philadelphia, end up at Penn State University, but Correnti was looking for a new experience.<\/p>\n
After visiting Furman\u2019s campus, meeting the people and touring the newly constructed Townes Center for Science, he saw no reason to look anywhere else. He enrolled at Furman Early Decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sealed my fate pretty early, so I really enjoyed my senior year of high school,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
His Advanced Placement credits allowed him to jump right into mid-level physics and chemistry courses. He figured either chemistry or physics would come out the front-runner, but by the end of his freshman year he had already decided on a double major.<\/p>\n
As he spent more time taking advanced courses, his interest in mathematics continued to grow and he began to see more connections between the three fields. After discussing the matter with friends and mentors, he decided to add the third major.<\/p>\n
\u201cMatt is the epitome of a student scholar,\u201d says mathematics professor John Harris. \u201cHe isn\u2019t taking courses just to graduate. He isn\u2019t choosing majors to pad his r\u00e9sum\u00e9. He\u2019s taking courses to learn, and he\u2019s making high-level connections in the context of very deep topics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blending the three fields is a path to discovery, Correnti says, and those discoveries have led him to a slew of honors and awards, as well as presentations at national and international conferences. He came to Furman as a Lay Scholar \u2014 the university\u2019s highest academic award \u2014 and while on campus has been named a Furman Fellow, a Barry M. Goldwater Scholar (the nation\u2019s most prestigious undergraduate award for math and science), and a Beckman Scholar, among other honors.<\/p>\n
\u201cMatt is among the most brilliant students I\u2019ve encountered in 30 years of teaching,\u201d says education professor Scott Henderson, Furman\u2019s director of national and international scholarships. \u201cHis pure intelligence is incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
DOWN IN THE BASEMENT<\/strong> of the Townes Center, Correnti, under Knight\u2019s direction, has been using and, in some cases, building laboratory equipment that simulates temperatures in outer space. The research, says Knight, is designed to create and study new molecules of astrophysical interest to help understand the cosmos at the very basic chemical level. They use an electron spin resonance apparatus to examine hydrogen cluster ions at temperatures near absolute zero.<\/p>\n Correnti was the lead author on a paper sharing the results of their research that was published in the Journal of Chemical Physics<\/em> in November of 2012. He was also the sole undergraduate presenter at a Royal Society Discussion Meeting in London in February of 2012.<\/p>\n Despite his intense academic load, Correnti has been diligent about making time for play during his college years. He participated in several intramural sports and coached an intramural soccer team.<\/p>\n As vice president of the Furman chapter of the American Chemical Society, he organized community outreach events, including interactive activities to help encourage children to become interested in science. One of his favorite projects for children is making ice cream with liquid nitrogen.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t say it tastes as good as Ben and Jerry\u2019s, but it\u2019s definitely in the spirit,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Correnti also has a passion for woodworking. \u201cCreating objects of original beauty and craftsmanship is as alluring to me as the process of scientific discovery,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Two of his pieces have received major recognition. Woodworkers Journal<\/em> highlighted a contemporary-style desk Correnti built, and a ball-and-claw table he made was showcased in the Philadelphia Furniture Show. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to take ideas, persevere through it and turn them into reality,\u201d Correnti says.<\/p>\n One of his greatest joys has been attending Furman with his high school sweetheart, Karen Woods. Woods, a health sciences major, finished her studies in December. They were married May 25, and they\u2019re headed to Richland, Wash., where Correnti will be part of the National Security Internship Program at the Pacific Northwest National Lab. There, he\u2019ll be able to continue what he describes as \u201cthe essence of Furman\u201d by working collaboratively with his research advisor, Dr. Marvin Warner.<\/p>\n The program will give him flexibility as he decides what course to pursue and what graduate program to attend. Eventually he hopes for a career developing practical technologies to address contemporary international issues, such as clean energy production and storage and pollution reduction.<\/p>\n \u201cMatt is simply a delight,\u201d says John Harris. \u201cFurman faculty will be talking about him for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are people who know a little about many things. There are people who know a lot about a few things. And then there\u2019s Matt Correnti. \u201cHe\u2019s someone who knows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":2651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,53,50,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-chemistry","category-mathematics","category-physics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}