Pawelec, a materials science and engineering senior, was named a 2010 U.S. Gates Scholar and received a full-ride to Cambridge University in England.

Pawelec is one of 29 students nationwide selected to receive the scholarship from about 800 applicants. She is the third Gates Scholar recipient in MSU’s history and this year’s lone Big Ten representative.

At Cambridge, Pawelec plans to obtain her doctorate in materials science, which is the study of the design, uses and production of matter.

She particularly is interested in biomaterials, the way in which living systems interact with materials.

The field has potential to find cures for osteoporosis as well as growing organs from stem cells making transplants easier, Pawelec said.

“There’s always something new to look at, something you never thought of before,” Pawelec said. “It’s a very exciting field, one I think you’ll hear more of t in the near future.”

A 4.0 student in the MSU Honors College, Pawelec made the choice to be home-schooled in some subjects throughout high school, dividing her time between Howell High School and the house across the street where her grandparents lived.

“She was always very eager to learn and extremely quick at picking it up,” Janotik said. “(She asks) a lot of questions if she doesn’t understand it and that’s the way to do it.”

Janotik taught Pawelec algebra, calculus, German, some Spanish and Russian, and how to brew beer.

“She’s just unbelievably talented in everything,” he said.

“I have a good relationship with my grandparents and such a relationship where I can question what my grandfather talked about,” Pawelec said. “We could sit down and go for half an hour arguing until I was totally convinced this was the way it worked.”

Pawelec also received literary classes and German from her grandmother, Brigitte, a former school teacher.

“She would do something once and she would remember it,” Brigitte Janotik said of her granddaughter.

At MSU, Pawelec became interested in materials science while working in Christina Chan’s lab.

Chan, a chemical engineering and materials science professor, described Pawelec as “very professional, very conscientious, very mature, very hard- working.”

In her two years at the lab, Pawelec has co-authored two papers, one published and one currently in review.

Beside science, Pawelec’s interests include the violin, which she plays for the Livingston Symphony Orchestra, painting, glasswork, ceramics, quilting and linguistics.

She serves as an ambassador for the MSU branch of the German Academic Exchange Service.

“She’s just an amazing girl and I really love her and appreciate her,” Janotik said. “That’s about all I can say.”