The University of Alabama at Birmingham
Office of Media Relations
February 17, 2000
Contact: Deborah Lucas, 934-8946
downloadable photo at http://www.uab.edu/news
EMBARGOED UNTIL FEB. 17
UAB RHODES SCHOLAR NAMED ONE OF TOP 20 STUDENTS IN THE NATION BY USA TODAY
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Neelaksh "Neel" Varshney is living the academic version of the American dream. In just over two months the 21-year-old electrical engineering major has earned two of the most competitive and prized undergraduate academic honors. In December, Varshney was named as UAB's (University of Alabama at Birmingham) first Rhodes Scholar, the highest academic honor an undergraduate can achieve. Then on Feb. 17, he was named to a spot on the USA Today 2000 All-USA College Academic First Team, a prestigious ranking as one of the top 20 college students in the United States.
A panel of educators selected the winners in the 11th annual competition from 828 nominees from colleges and universities nationwide. The winners will be featured in the Feb. 17 edition of USA Today. Varshney is the second UAB student to be selected to the Academic First Team. In 1998, biology major Hejal Patel, now a medical student at UAB, was named to the first team. Two UAB students have made the Second Team: Rachna Relwani in 1997, and Robert Allsbrook in 1993.
The USA Today honor comes with a $2,500 cash award, which Varshney will receive during a Feb. 18 luncheon ceremony in the Gannett Corporate Dining Room in Arlington, Va. As a Rhodes Scholar, he will spend two years studying cognitive neuroscience at Oxford University. After Oxford, he plans to earn medical and Ph.D. degrees. His area of specialty will be computer modeling of the brain.
"This has been a very exciting time for me and my family," Varshney said. "The whole process of applying for the Rhodes Scholarship and the USA Today First team has helped me define what I want to do."
Varshney, who will graduate in June, has a long history of scholastic achievement and volunteerism. He is a 1996 graduate of Grissom High School in Huntsville, where he was valedictorian and captain of the 1996 All-State swim team. He also was named one of the state's top 16 swimmers that year.
He received a number of scholarships to attend UAB, including the Charles W. Ireland Presidential Scholarship, UAB's top award for an incoming freshman. He is a member of the UAB Honors Program and the Early Medical School Acceptance Program, which gives a few very gifted high school seniors a guaranteed admission to the medical school at UAB when they come to UAB as undergraduates. In addition to his academic achievements, Varshney was the UAB student representative to The University of Alabama Board of Trustees in 1998, Mr. UAB 1998, and a UAB Ambassador. His many volunteer activities include helping to build homes for area low-income residents.
Varshney says it is his family first and foremost who have instilled in him a strong work ethic and a sensitivity to the basic needs and rights of human beings. Varshney is the son of Anil and Shashi Varshney, who came to the United States from the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. His father, who earned his graduate degree at the University of Oklahoma, is an engineer with Teledyne Brown Engineering in Huntsville. His mother is an accountant with NASA. She earned her degree in accounting from the University of Alabama at Huntsville. He also has two older sisters: Divya, 31, a strategy consultant in New York City, and Ruchira, 25, an osteopathic medical student at Midwestern University.
"My parents came here from India to take advantage of the greater opportunities available in this country," Varshney said. "They share a remarkable bond even though theirs was an arranged marriage; the first time they talked was one day after the ceremony. My father came from the upper middle class and my mother's family was comfortable, by Indian standards, but they were like many of their generation who came to this country with almost nothing. My father came here and worked for a year before my mother joined him. To remain in this country they had to work hard to create a stable life.
"But there are unique challenges to my generation -- the first generation born here -- that we haven't come to terms with yet. The Indian culture and the American culture are quite different. And I have watched my sisters and my parents struggle to reconcile their Indian heritage with their American nationality. I've seen what kind of struggles my parents have gone through because they look different, sound different, and I think that has made me more sensitive to differences in people and sort of a champion of differences."
Ada Long, director of the UAB Honors Program, said Varshney "respects all his classmates -- especially those who might seem like outsiders or feel left out -- and he is both respected and loved in return."
Long met Varshney and his parents during the family's visit to campus during his senior year in high school. He had been accepted to a number of prestigious universities, including Columbia, Northwestern and Boston University, but chose UAB for its research and other opportunities not available to undergraduates elsewhere.
"It is not at all infrequent for us to get students like Neel who have been accepted to universities like Dartmouth and Yale," Long said. We have diversity and innovation in the Honors curriculum set in a very strong academic community that rivals any in the country, and UAB is very affordable. Neel could have gone anywhere, but he wanted to meet a true cross section of cultures and have the opportunity to work closely with them and his professors, and he found that at UAB and in the Honors Program. He has been a leader in the program from the beginning, and I think his presence has been good for him as well as for us."
In was during a 1997 Honors Program seminar, "The Evolution of the Vertebrate Brain," that Varshney met one of his most influential mentors, internationally known UAB neurobiologist Michael Friedlander, Ph.D.
"In addition to his strong intellectual skills, it was apparent that Neel also had 'the fire in the belly that you want to see in young scientists," Friedlander said. "That summer, Neel approached me to spend several months working in my laboratory on research into the mechanism whereby the brain learns new information. This is the type of project that usually is carried out by advanced graduate students working towards their Ph.D. in neurobiology or postdoctoral fellows who are already post-Ph.D. I was reluctant to take on a young undergraduate, but recalling Neel's unusual abilities, I gave him a chance. For those of us in brain sciences, we are very fortunate to have someone as talented and dedicated as Neel entering our field."
Varshney also found other mentors willing to help him perfect his multi-disciplinary approach, including UAB biomedical engineer Allan Dobbins, Ph.D., and electrical engineers David Conner, Ph.D., and Dennis Smith, Ph.D. Combining his expertise in engineering with his work with UAB medical ethicist Gregory Pence, Ph.D., Varshney authored an article published in the 1999 Princeton Journal of Bioethics titled "The Convergence of Medicine and Telecommunication: Implications for Patient Care." And after being awarded a National Science Foundation grant, he spent the past summer doing research at the Boston University Brain and Vision Laboratory. He also spent the summer volunteering with Physicians for Human Rights in Boston.
"I guess all of this -- my research and the outreach work I've done -- has to do with the way I was brought up and the opportunities I've had," Varshney said. "I wanted to find a way to combine my love of engineering and math with my fascination for the way the brain works, and I found that at UAB. My parents and sisters all have a desire to help other people in whatever capacity they can.
"And although I'm getting a lot of attention right now, I haven't done it alone; my family, my close friends, and my mentors and so many others at UAB have been with me. I am looking forward to going to England, but there is strong motivation for me to come back to Alabama. It will always be my home."
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UAB News on the web at www.uab.edu/news
USA TODAY 2000 All-USA College Academic First Team
The 20 students named to the All-USA College Academic First Team were selected from 828 nominees from colleges and universities across the country. Outstanding individual scholarship or intellectual achievement and leadership roles in activities on or off campus were the most important criteria to the judges. Students also were judged on academic performance, honors, awards, rigor of academic pursuits and the ability to express themselves in writing.
Criteria for the honor were developed in consultation with USA TODAY's education co-sponsors: the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grand Colleges (MASULGC), the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).
The 2000 All-USA College Academic Team final judges were: Lew Armistead, LA Communications; Frank Balz, National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities; Penelope Earley, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education; Cheryl Fields, National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges; Shanda Ivory, National Association for College Admission Counseling; Gary Marx, Center for Public Outreach; Tim McDonough, American Council on Education; Iris Molotsky, American Association of University Professors; George "Pinky" Nelson, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Project 2061; Sarah Ridley, Public Humanities Programmer; Jadwiga Sebrechts, Women's College Coalition; and Robert Thornton, Housatonic Community-Technical College.
The 20 First Team members and their hometowns are:
Daniel B.Baer of Littleton, Colo., Harvard University at Cambridge, Mass.
Jacob M. Chacko of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., University of Southern California at Los Angeles
Ginger M. Denison of Greensboro, N.C., Furman University at Greenville, S.C.
Cindi L. Dennis of Beaver Creek, Ohio, Carnegie Mellon University at Pittsburgh, Penn.
Nir Eyal of New York, N.Y., Emory University at Atlanta.
Zachary A. Friedman of Beverly Hills, Calif; Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, Md.
Amos N. Jones of Lexington, Ky., Emory University at Atlanta
Vivian See Ki Ka of Woodside, N.Y., City College of New York/CUNY
S. Eben Kirksey of Rockville, Md., New College of the University of South Florida at Sarasota
Andrew F. March of Falmouth, Maine, University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia
Rita K. Ng of Tracy, Calif., Stanford University at Stanford
Caroline M. Parler of Columbia, S.C., University of South Carolina Honors College at Columbia
Ethan R. Plaut of Evanston, Ill., Northwestern University at Evanston
Simon J. Rodberg of New York, N.Y., Yale University at New Haven, Conn.
Danielle L. Sered of Chicago, Ill, Emory University at Atlanta
Matthew C. Steenberg of Moscow, Idaho, St. Olaf College at Northfield, Minn.
Neelaksh K. Varshney of Madison, Ala., University of Alabama at Birmingham
Ying Wu of New York, N.Y., New York University
Yang Yang of San Gabriel, Calif., California State University at Los Angeles
Sarvenaz Zand of Northridge, Calif., Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, Md.
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