2 from Williams Win Gates Scholarships
WILLIAMSTOWN - The Gates Cambridge Scholars Program has awarded scholarships for study at the University of Cambridge to Williams College senior Shannon Chiu and alumnus Shawn Powers.The scholarships will cover tuition, living expenses, and travel fees.
Only 45 of the 635 students from the United States who applied for the Gates Cambridge Scholarship this year were selected for the award. The selection was based on intellectual caliber, leadership ability and desire to enrich the lives of others.
Chiu, who hails from Woodbridge, Conn., is a pre-med major. She is majoring in biology with a concentration in neuroscience. At Cambridge, she intends to complete a master of science in experimental psychology.
"My work at Cambridge next fall will bridge my current pursuits in clinical and behavioral neuroscience, as well as offer a much more in-depth study of the variability of age-related atrophy," Chiu said. "In the future, I hope to play a role in the effort to combat degenerative brain disorders."
At Williams, Chiu has been exploring an interest in fighting neurodegenerative disease in an independent project in neurosciences at Williams using the Nintendo game "Brain Age," exploring the hypothesis that cognitively stimulating activities may mitigate age-related decline.
Chiu says she knew she wanted a career in medicine after her experience two years ago, when as a Class of 1972 Intern, part of the Alumni Sponsored Internship Program, she worked as a research associate in the Emergency Department of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.
The internship gave her the chance to assist medical staff in a number of research studies, including acute HIV, intubation procedures, migraine drugs, and patient satisfaction with attending physicians.
"The day-to-day proximity to patients and their needs made me realize how much I wanted to be able to make a positive difference in others' lives, particularly the ill and the neglected," she said.
She also has worked on the Williams student newspaper, most recently as executive editor. She is a co-chairman of the Biology Major Advisory Committee, and an editorial member of the college yearbook, the Gulielmensian. She also has worked on the Williams Literary Review, in the Math/Science Resource Center and tutoring program, and participated in the Asian Theater Project and played junior varsity field hockey.
Raised in Danvers, Powers graduated summa cum laude in economics in 2004. He will pursue a master of philosophy in development studies at Cambridge, and hopes to gain a comprehensive understanding of development theory and practice from this interdisciplinary program.
At Williams, Powers discovered his affinity for development economics and subsequently administered a system for distributing surplus dining hall food to aid organizations in the area.
After graduating from Williams, he completed a year as an Emerson National Hunger Fellow, which included field work in Alaska, and another year as a Fulbright Scholar in the Philippines, where he studied the impact of community-initiated and -funded development projects. Since then, he has founded an advocacy program at Alaska's statewide food bank. He is a columnist for the Anchorage Daily News.
The Gates Cambridge Trust was established for outstanding international graduate students in 2000 with a $210 million donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This highly competitive program is similar to the University of Oxford's Rhodes Scholarships.
Last year, Alan Rodrigues, who graduated in 2007, became the first Gates Cambridge Scholar from Williams. He is currently pursuing a master of philosophy in computational biology at Cambridge's Emmanuel College.
