Eberly News

Three West Virginia University students have been awarded the coveted Goldwater Scholarship, the nation’s premier undergraduate scholarship in mathematics, engineering and natural sciences which supports students with strong commitments to research careers.

Juniors Henry Coyle, an aerospace engineering major from Charlottesville, Virginia, Corinne Hazel, an environmental microbiology major from Delaware, Ohio, and Grady King, a data science major from Morgantown, will each receive $7,500 annually for up to two years of undergraduate study to further their research. All three are members of the Honors College.

For Amy Hessl, professor of geography at West Virginia University, the past can predict the future. Hessl is a dendrochronologist, a scientist who unravels climate histories and trends through the study of tree ring growth patterns. So when wildfires engulfed the Los Angeles, California area in January 2025, resulting in dozens of deaths and tens of thousands of destroyed structures, Hessl wasn’t taken aback. In fact, she said, ongoing warm air temperatures and variable precipitation – which can be presumed from her studies of climate history trends — will lead to even more extreme fires in the future.