{"id":9832,"date":"2022-03-31T16:10:43","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T16:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2022\/03\/31\/george-shields-wins-goldwater-mentor-award\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:47:08","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:47:08","slug":"george-shields-wins-goldwater-mentor-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/george-shields-wins-goldwater-mentor-award\/","title":{"rendered":"George Shields wins Goldwater mentor award"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Shields has a knack for mentoring. Four students under the chemistry professor\u2019s tutelage have won Fulbright awards and 13 became Goldwater Scholars, including five at Furman University, three of those in 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, Shields<\/a> has been recognized for his mentorship as the recipient of the 2022 Faculty Mentor Award from the Council on Undergraduate Research and the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe award is just a recognition of the fact that there\u2019ve been lots of good students who\u2019ve come through my lab, who started research early and were able to demonstrate their research aptitude as well as their high grades in order to be competitive for this fellowship,\u201d Shields said.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge is a remarkable mentor,\u201d said Furman University President Elizabeth Davis. \u201cHe guides his students as they develop a deep understanding of the field of chemistry and the nuances of life. He gives them a chance to find themselves and identify future careers in science. Furman is very proud to have him on our faculty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year Shields published his 100th<\/sup> peer-reviewed scientific paper<\/a>. In characteristic fashion, six of the co-authors were undergraduates, one is a Furman alumnus and the other is a postdoctoral fellow in Shields\u2019 lab. The co-authors are Shannon Harold \u201922, Conor Bready \u201924, Leah Juechter \u201924, Luke Kurfman \u201922, Sara Vanovac \u201919, Vance Fowler \u201924, Grace Mazaleski \u201922 and postdoc Tuguldur Odbadrakh.<\/p>\n

At Furman, undergraduates routinely do research. It\u2019s a hallmark of The Furman Advantage<\/a>. In the summer of 2021, 272 students<\/a> worked with 104 faculty.<\/p>\n

In the chemistry department, Shields said, \u201cWe pride ourselves on the fact that we make these opportunities available for students.\u201d Even first-year students have the chance to do research the summer before their sophomore years, which clearly gives them an edge at applying for Goldwater scholarships.<\/p>\n

Mentoring takes a lot of work, Shields said. Undergraduates are eager, but they don\u2019t yet have the knowledge. Slowly, as professors teach the students to think through problems, they start to work independently.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really is hard work, but the payoff is great,\u201d Shields said. \u201cYou see these students who go on and get PhDs and they come back and they tell you about their research and you think, boy that sounds impressive, I wish I understood it better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Shields has a knack for mentoring. Four students under the chemistry professor\u2019s tutelage have won Fulbright awards and 13 became Goldwater Scholars, including five at Furman University, three of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":8513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,53,7],"tags":[653],"class_list":["post-9832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-chemistry","category-top-four-news-2nd-story","tag-goldwater"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832","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\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}