Nine Women Awarded Prestigious Churchill Scholarships

The Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States has announced its latest cohort of 15 students who will be the 2016-17 Churchill Scholars. The students will study for master’s degrees in STEM fields at the University of Cambridge in England.

The first Churchill Scholarships were awarded in 1963. Since that time there have been about 500 students who have received the scholarships.

Of the 15 Churchill Scholarships awarded this year, nine went to women.

(L to R) Alexis Crockett, Mithi Alexa de los Reyes and Kara Fong

Alexis Crockett is a senior at Ohio State University in Columbus. The previous winner of a Goldwater Scholarship, Crockett is majoring in neuroscience and psychology. She will study for a master’s degree in physiology at Cambridge. Her research is focused on depression.

Mithi Alexa de los Reyes is a senior at North Carolina State University in North Carolina. She will pursue a one-year master’s degree in astronomy from the University of Cambridge beginning this fall. A graduate of the North Carolina School of Science and Math, de los Reyes is the first student at North Carolina State to win a Churchill Scholarship. After Cambridge, she will seek admission to a Ph.D. program in astronomy.

Kara Fong is a senior majoring in chemical engineering at Stanford University in California. As a Churchill Scholar, Fong plans to pursue a master’s degree in materials science and metallurgy at Churchill College, which is part of the University of Cambridge. Fong won a Goldwater Scholarship in 2014.

(L to R) Ramya Gurunathan, Blake Hauser and Jillian Jaycox

Ramya Gurunathan is a senior at Pennsylvania State University. She will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in materials science and engineering and nanotechnology. Gurunathan is only the second student from Penn State to win a Churchill Scholarship. She spent last summer as an intern at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. In Cambridge, Gurunathan will study for a master’s degree in scientific computing.

Blake Hauser is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the 16th student from the university to win a Churchill scholarship. Hauser is a double major in environmental science and biology and also is minoring in chemistry. In Cambridge, she will pursue a master’s degree in evidence-based social intervention and policy evaluation.

Jillian Jaycox, a senior at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will join the Autoimmune Disease Research Group at University of Cambridge next fall. She is a long-distance runner on Carnegie Mellon’s track team. After studying for a master’s degree in medicine at Cambridge, Jaycox plans to apply to a joint M.D.-Ph.D. program and pursue a career as a physician-scientist in immunology.

(L to R) Lisa Jones, Mackenzie Simper and Jean Wilkening

Lisa Jones is a senior at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. Her research is focused on public key cryptography, quantum computing, statistical language modeling, and program analysis. She will study for a master’s degree in pure mathematics while a Churchill Scholar.

Mackenzie Simper is the first Churchill Scholar from the University of Utah. She is a native of Salt Lake City and is majoring in mathematics. In 2014, she transferred to the University of Utah after completing work at Salt Lake Community College. Simper was recently awarded the Alice T. Schafer Prize for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics from the Association for Women in Mathematics.

Jean Wilkening is a senior at the University of Arizona, where she is majoring in chemical engineering. At the University of Cambridge, Wilkening is planning to study for a master degree in earth sciences.