Four Women Among This Year’s 15 Churchill Scholars

The Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States has announced its latest cohort of 15 students who will be the 2017-18 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 more than 500 students who have received the scholarships.

Of the 15 Churchill Scholarships awarded this year, four went to women. A year ago, nine of the 15 winners of Churchill Scholarships were women.

Lucy Chai is a senior at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She is majoring in engineering, computer science, and bioengineering. At the University of Cambridge, she will study for a master’s degree in machine learning and speech and language technology.

Angela Harper is a senior at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She is the first student from the university to earn a Churchill Scholarship. Harper’s research is focused on making improvements to lithium-ion batteries. A native of Downingtown, Pennsylvania, Harper previously won a Goldwater Scholarship.

Vivian Wang is a senior at Stanford University in California. She is majoring in electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics. At the University of Cambridge, Wang will pursue a master’s degree in physics. Her research goal is to develop a device for measuring protein levels using nanopore sensing.

Angela Zou is a student at the University of California, San Diego. A previous winner of a Goldwater Scholarship, Zou is majoring in bioengineering and bioinformatics. She will study for a master’s degree at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, a genomics and genetics research organization in England. She hopes to pursue a combined medical degree with a Ph.D. in genetics and bioinformatics.