Prize Recipient

Gustavo Resendiz
Harvard University

Background:

Although my family originally comes from a small town in central Mexico, I was born and raised in Houston, Texas, where I spent much of my childhood playing soccer with my two brothers and developing interests in dinosaurs and natural disasters. Ultimately, I found dinosaur extinction theories to be far more interesting than any other aspect of paleontology. I distinctly remember searching my elementary schools library for information on asteroids when I came across a book named Black Holes. I was surprised to find it in the nonfiction section, as I had always assumed black holes were not real. That book sparked my interest in the moon, the stars, and other objects in the night sky. 
This interest accompanied me into middle school, where I remember reading about Betelgeuse and other giant stars. I learned of quasars, gamma-ray bursts, dark matter & energy, and famous astrophysicists. Early in my high school career, I had the good fortune of attending a lecture on the origin of the universe by Stephen Hawking. While in high school, I took physics classes both in school and at summer programs at Carnegie Mellon and MIT.  I have also developed interests in chemistry and math, and am currently working in a laboratory at Rice University researching protein crystallization.  I am a graduate of DeBakey High School, and this fall will be attending Harvard University, where I will major in physics and math and dabble a bit in chemistry and sociology. As of now, I would like to go into academia and have a successful career as a physics researcher and teacher, but my goals may change in the future. Outside of science, I enjoy running, reading, and watching Houston Texans football.