Don't stereotype Joseph Neilsen. Yes, he's a double major in physics and mathematics, the author of a published article about neutron stars, and the winner of a prestigious science scholarship. But for Neilsen, a member of the Class of 2006 from St. Louis, Missouri, the order of the theoretical world is entwined with the wonder of the actual world.

"There's little distinction between the dimensions of awe in science and in religious life," says Neilsen, who attended a Jesuit high school. "Catholicism gives a fundamental belief in the order of the universe. Math gives me a way to describe that. And physics expresses the wonder I feel about the universe in a logical context, combining the 'wow!' with the mechanics of homework."

"Wow" might be a good word to describe Neilson himself. He spent the summer of 2004 at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where his research led to an article in The Astrophysical Journal. And in the spring of 2005, Neilsen received a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the premiere award for undergraduates planning careers in science. Neilsen, who hopes to become a professor of math and physics, has already gotten some informal teaching experience at Kenyon, as a physics tutor, a facilitator in Sunday-night math clinics, and a student worker in the math skills center.

Neilsen has enjoyed his coursework in English, history, and music. But it's often math or science that sparks his enthusiasm. A statistics course, for example, got him to thinking about the marvels of mere happenstance. "This is totally unsound mathematically," he recalls, "but I started thinking that, given all the moments that have taken place in time, the probability of any event in our lives is about zero. I couldn't let go of this idea, and I probably spent a week annoying my friends, greeting them by saying: 'What are the odds?'"