Mary Sevart Receives Barry M Goldwater Scholarship

Chemical Engineering Junior Mary Sevart has been selected as a 2022-2023 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship Recipient. The award is regarded as the premier undergraduate award to encourage excellence in science, engineering and mathematics and recognizes Mary’s achievements in the STEM field.

Mary Sevart, from Wichita, is the daughter of Eric and Karen Sevart and a graduate of Maize High School. Sevart plans to pursue a doctorate in chemical engineering. She aspires to employ solutions to the world’s dependence on fossil fuels through a research career.

“I felt very honored and very blessed to receive this award,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without my research mentors, and I know they’ll continue to help guide me as I go to graduate school.”

As a freshman, she joined the KU Biodiesel Initiative lab of founding faculty member Susan Williams, Charles E. & Mary Jane Spahr Professor of Engineering, and currently serves as the testing lab manager. Specifically, Sevart participates in research initiatives under the guidance of Williams with a focus on creating a potential fuel source from thermochemical processing of hemp biomass after CBD oil extraction.

She also is the recruitment chair of KU's Society of Women Engineers and serves as an ambassador for the KU School of Engineering. This spring, Sevart was awarded the NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship and earned an Undergraduate Research Award through the KU Center for Undergraduate Research. In fall 2021, she won first place in the poster competition at the national conference for Society of Women Engineers and received a scholarship from the Next Generation Scientists for Biodiesel in fall 2020. This past summer, Sevart completed an internship at Spirit AeroSystems, and she looks forward to participating in an internship at the National Weather Service in summer 2022 through the NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship program.

Learn about all 5 of the Goldwater recipients on the Official KU New Release