Brown will be sending three Gates Cambridge Scholars to England this year - Kate Brandt '07, Ariana Green '04 and Eric Koskinen GS. The scholarships were announced March 13.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation established the Gates Cambridge Trust in 2000. Since then, six Brown students have won the scholarship - three this year and one each in 2002, 2003 and 2004. The trust supports graduate study at the University of Cambridge for students from outside the United Kingdom.
Candidates are evaluated based on "intellectual ability, leadership capacity and desire to use their knowledge to contribute to society throughout the world by providing service to their communities and applying their talents and knowledge to improve the lives of others," according to the scholarship Web site.
The Gates Cambridge Trust seeks to select 100 new scholars annually. Among the 48 U.S. students picked this year, 17 most recently attended Ivy League schools.
Applicants do not earn admission to Cambridge through the scholarship and must apply to the university separately. "Cambridge was my first choice for graduate school, and I had gotten in about a month earlier," Brandt said.
"I mean, I was very thrilled and obviously really honored. I think it's an incredible organization with a great mission," she said of the Gates Foundation. A concentrator in international relations, Brandt said she will pursue an M.Phil in international relations at Selwyn College and likely stay to complete a Ph.D.
Brandt is currently writing an honors thesis on the role of history and memory in Sino-Japanese security relations. She said she plans to research Chinese political, military and trade involvement with Latin America.
Green, currently a Fulbright scholar at London's City University, will study community radio in relation to women's empowerment for an M.Phil in modern society and global transformations, according to the scholarship Web site.
Koskinen, a graduate of the College of William & Mary, will begin his studies in the computer science doctoral program at Cambridge. He will focus on developing techniques for verifying concurrent programs and building automatic software verification tools, according to the Web site.
