By Michelle Tong, Office of International Programs on June 4, 2026, 9:17 a.m.

Lilia Burtonpatel and Ram Narayanan, both members of Princeton's Class of 2027, have been awarded Goldwater Scholarships. This annual award — now in its 40th year — supports “sophomores and juniors who aspire to become this nation’s next generation of researchers in science, engineering, and mathematics” according to the Goldwater Scholarship Foundation. Burtonpatel and Narayanan are among 454 recipients selected across the United States this year. 

The scholarship program was created as part of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation established by Congress in 1986 in honor of U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater. 

Burtonpatel, from Brookline, Massachusetts, is majoring in ecology and evolutionary biology, with a minor in music. Before arriving on campus, Burtonpatel participated in the Novogratz Bridge Year Program in Indonesia. She went on to participate in numerous international experiences including interning with PanNature, a forest conservation nongovernmental organization based in Vietnam, through the International Internship Program and a semester study abroad in Panama through the Princeton Tropical Biology Program. She is a recipient of the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence and is a member of Forbes College. 

Ram Narayanan is a physics major from Scarsdale, New York, with minors in computer science and applied and computational mathematics. He is a residential college adviser at New College West and a member of the Princeton Society of Physics Students. He is a recipient of a Freshman First Honor Prize and the Deborah Jin Memorial Prize in Physics, and is a two-time recipient of the Manfred Pyka Memorial Physics Prize and the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence. He also participated in the ReMatch+ summer research program where he worked with Sanfeng Wu, assistant professor of physics.