Two KU juniors to compete for Astronaut Scholarships

LAWRENCE — Two outstanding University of Kansas undergraduates are representing KU in the Astronaut Scholarship program.

The six surviving members of the Mercury 7 mission founded the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF) in 1984 to encourage students to pursue scientific endeavors to keep the U.S. on the leading edge of technology. Astronauts from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs have joined the foundation, which has awarded $10 million in scholarships to more than 850 of the nation’s top scholars.

KU’s 2025 nominees:

• Alexa Magstadt, a junior in molecular, cellular & developmental biology minoring in Spanish.
• Elizabeth Miller, a junior in interdisciplinary computing with a concentration in chemistry.

With the support of the ASF, up to two KU undergraduate students will be selected annually to receive up to a $15,000 scholarship during their junior and/or senior year. Nominations were sought from faculty members in all STEM disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — for students with exceptional academic records and considerable research experience. A committee coordinated by the Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships selected the university’s candidates for the award. Steven Hawley, KU professor emeritus of physics & astronomy and former astronaut, helped confirm KU’s nominees. The winners of the scholarship will be announced in late spring. The Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships will start seeking Astronaut Scholarship nominations for next year in fall 2025.

The ASF board of directors selected KU to join the program based upon the excellence of the university’s STEM academic programs for undergraduates and the strong research capabilities and opportunities for undergraduate students. Admission into the scholarship program is highly competitive, and only the top research universities in the country are chosen to participate.

Alexa Magstadt

Alexa Magstadt, from Shawnee, is the daughter of Dave and Amy Magstadt and a graduate of Shawnee Mission Northwest High School. Magstadt is majoring in molecular, cellular & developmental biology and minoring in Spanish. She aspires to obtain a dual M.D./Ph.D. in cancer biology and practice as a physician-scientist and medical oncologist. At the KU Lawrence campus, she has been a member of the Baer Ecology Lab and the Dixon Cancer Prevention Lab. Last summer, after being selected as a K-INBRE Summer Scholar, she conducted an independent project with Dan Dixon centered around drug discovery in colorectal cancer, specifically inhibiting oncogenic KRAS mutations with small molecule therapeutics. Currently, she is performing research related to the impact of metabolic syndrome on the progression and metastasis of colorectal cancer with Jennifer Davis at KU Medical Center in the Department of Cancer Biology. In spring 2024, she presented her work at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting in San Diego. She received the Nathan Parker Undergraduate Research Travel Award from the Department of Molecular Biosciences and an Honors Opportunity Award from the University Honors Program to attend this conference. She was also selected as a presenter at the 2024 K-INBRE Annual Symposium and was awarded first place for her oral presentation. Additionally, she is a 2024 University Scholar, a KU BioScholar, a recipient of a 2024 Undergraduate Research Award and a KU Chancellor’s Merit Scholar. Magstadt is the vice president of the KU club waterski team, an Honors Program ambassador, a member of Phi Delta Epsilon Pre-Medical Fraternity, a member of Phi Kappa Phi Academic Honor Society and a volunteer at the University of Kansas Cancer Center. In March 2025, she was named a Goldwater Scholar.

Elizabeth Miller

Elizabeth Miller, from Emporia, is the daughter of Daniel Miller and Jai Park and a graduate of Emporia High School. She is majoring in interdisciplinary computing with a concentration in chemistry and plans to pursue a doctorate in computational biology, focusing on its applications to biomedical research. Currently, Miller works in the computational biology lab of Joanna Slusky, professor of molecular biosciences, where she is working on the structural determination of the major outer membrane protein in Chlamydia trachomatis and developing a dataset of human metalloenzymes. Previously, she worked in the lab of Zarko Boskovic, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry, synthesizing and characterizing novel organic compounds with possible biological activity. Her contribution to optimizing and exploring the scope of a new photochemical reaction led to a publication in the Journal of Organic Chemistry, of which she is a co-author. Miller has presented this work at the 2024 KU Honors Mossberg Pharmacy Symposium and the 2024 Kansas Undergraduate Research Day at the state capital. Miller, a member of the University Honors Program, was a previous Emerging Scholar and is a recipient of the KU Chancellor’s Merit Scholarship and Engineering Dean’s Scholarship. Additionally, she volunteers as a tutor for KU’s Association of Computing Machinery chapter and participated in KU LibArt; her paintings are currently displayed in KU Libraries for the 2024-2025 academic year.