The British Government has announced the 40 winners of the prestigious Marshall Scholarship programme, which selects graduate students from across the United States to study in the United Kingdom and serve as ambassadors for relations between the US and the UK. They follow in the prestigious footsteps of Marshalls alumni including Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, author and journalist Thomas Friedman, and key appointee to the Obama Administration Peter Orszag.

This year's scholars will pursue post-graduate studies at top academic and research institutions in the United Kingdom. They will study and pursue graduate degrees in a variety of subjects including public policy, health policy, engineering, music, environment change and management and chinese studies. This year, the US Naval Academy, Harvard and MIT each had four students receive and accept the prestigious Marshall Scholarship.  

Commenting on the Marshall Scholarship, British Ambassador to the United States Sir Nigel Sheinwald said:

"Every year, we award Marshall Scholarships to some of the very finest young minds in America, and help them study in the United Kingdom. The Marshall Scholarship is a way for us to deepen the very special cultural and educational bond between our two countries.

"I know that these young men and women will be marvellous ambassadors for the United States - and I hope they will draw on their British experience as they go on to highly successful careers and lives. If their predecessors are anything to go by, many of them will go on to shape the cultural, political and academic futures that our two countries will forge together."

Named for Secretary of State George Marshall, the programme began in 1953 as a gesture of gratitude to the people of the United States for the assistance that the UK received after World War II under the Marshall Plan. Scholarships offer talented young Americans the chance to study for up to three years at a British university of their choice.

Since the programme's inception, over 1,500 young Americans have become Marshall Scholars.  Eminent alumni include:

• Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer
• Pullitzer Prize Winning Authors Tom Friedman and Dan Yergin
• Peter Orszag, Director of the Congressional Budget Office, and nominee to be President-Elect Obama's Office of Management and Budget Director
• Roger Tsien, the American biochemist who was jointly awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, for his work on fluoresecent proteins that enable bioscientists to study disease and cell malfunctions
• Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh

Notes for Editors

1. The 2009 class of Marshall Scholars are:

1. Adam Bouland from Yale University will attend University of Cambridge 
2. Donald Bungum from University of Chicago will attend University of Oxford
3. Kyle Checchi from the US Naval Academy will attend the London School of Economics and Political Science
4. Conor Clarke from Amherst College will attend Cardiff University
5. Jeffrey Cloutier from Middlebury College will attend University College London
6. Samuel Daly from Columbia University will attend University of Oxford
7. Henry Donaghy from the US Naval Academy will attend Imperial College London
8. Katelyn Finley from Davidson College will attend University of Oxford
9. Andrew Gamalski from Arizona State will attend University University of Cambridge
10. Kurt Herzer from Johns Hopkins University will attend University of Oxford
11. Dhananjay Jagannathan from the University of Texas - Austin will attend University of Oxford
12. Max Kleiman-Weiner from Stanford University will attend University of Oxford
13. Samuel Kleiner from Northwestern University will attend University of Oxford
14. Robert Kubala from Boston College will attend University of St Andrews
15. Richard Lin from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will attend University of Oxford
16. Sally Liu from Duke University will attend the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
17. Kuong Ly from Boston College will attend University of Essex
18. Kyle Mahowald from Harvard University will attend University of Oxford
19. Rishi Mediratta from Johns Hopkins University will attend the School of Oriental and African Studies
20. Andrew Miller from Harvard University will attend the London School of Economics and Political Science
21. Brian Mueller from the US Air Force Academy will attend King's College London
22. Elizabeth Nyikos from the University of South Carolina - Columbia will attend University of Oxford
23. Michelle Prairie from University of Connecticut will attend University of Nottingham
24. Kelcie Ralph from University of Alaska - Anchorage will attend the London School of Economics and Political Science
25. Sheela Ramesh from Carnegie Mellon University will attend Royal College of Music
26. David Reshef from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will attend University of Oxford
27. Daniel Roberts from Duke University will attend University of Cambridge
28. Nathaniel Sharpe from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will attend University of Cambridge
29. John Sheffield from Harvard University will attend University of Oxford
30. Michael Shih from Princeton University will attend University of Cambridge
31. Douglas Stanford from Stanford University will attend University of Cambridge
32. Christina Thatcher from Temple University will attend Cardiff University 
33. Anjali Tripathi from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will attend University of Cambridge
34. Derron Wallace from Wheaton College will attend University of Cambridge
35. Emma Wu from Harvard University will attend University College London
36. Shuai Xu from Rice University will attend Imperial College London
37. Yun Yu from Indiana University will attend Imperial College London
38. Kelly Zahalka from the US Naval Academy will attend the School of Oriental and African Studies
39. Jessica Wei Zhu from University of Houston - main campus will attend Guildhall School of Music and Drama
40. Benjamin Zintak from the US Naval Academy will attend Cranfield University

2. For more information on Marshall Scholarships, please visit the Marshall Scholarship website.

Back to newsroom

Back to top