3 Students Honored for Math, Science Success

Three local high school students were named National Science Scholars for their achievements in math and science, the U.S. Department of Education has announced.

Jennifer Lamping, who attended La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks; Jeffrey Bowers, a student at Oxnard High School, and Cynthia Fuhrmann, from Oak Park High School, were among 861 graduating seniors selected nationwide in the third year of the program.

The honorees will each receive a $1,750 scholarship for their freshman year in college. The award is renewable each of the next three years.

“I’m going to be majoring in chemistry and going on to grad school in biochemistry,” said Cynthia, 17, who will be attending UC Davis next fall.

Lamping plans to major in civil engineering at Princeton, and Bowers has enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Scholar nominees were selected by educators, scientists, mathematicians and engineers, and whittled down by the secretary of education and the director of the National Science Foundation.

“Almost all the kids end up at prestigious universities,” said David Hammond of the California Department of Education. “They’re really academic kids, what we used to call whiz kids.”