Kit Savoy - 2024 Goldwater Scholarship Nominee

Kit Savoy, from Olathe, is the daughter of John and Heidi Savoy and a graduate of Olathe North High School. Savoy is majoring in biological sciences and minoring in chemistry and theatre with plans to pursue a doctorate in microbiology and conduct, facilitate and share research in microbiology as a principal investigator. Savoy has participated in several research projects under the direction of Benjamin Sikes, KU associate professor of ecology & evolutionary biology, including those focused on grassland restoration, mimulus plant-soil feedback, perennial crops in sustainable agriculture, gamma irradiation of soils and understanding environmental drivers of extremophile microbes for use in space. Savoy has also served as a microbiology undergraduate teaching assistant, a Sikes Microbial Lab peer mentor, a biology tutor, a shopkeep for Wander Bee Wares and a transcriber for the Smithsonian Institution. Savoy is a KU BioScholar, the recipient of a 2023 and 2024 Undergraduate Research Award, a 2023 Courtwright Award finalist and a KU Chancellor’s Merit Scholar.

More information about Kit!

• A fun fact about Kit is they run an Etsy shop selling handmade goods (WanderBeeWaves).
• Their favorite KU memory is playing in the snow with a bunch of strangers in the middle of the night on Daisy Hill.
• Their favorite study spot is the corner room of Java Break.
• This semester, they’re looking forward to analyzing the data from their experiment.