Timothy O’Connor, a Brigham Young University bioinformatics major, recently won the Gates Cambridge Scholarship for study at the University of Cambridge in England in October.
O’Connor, who hails from University Place, Wash., is only the second BYU student to be given the prestigious award. BYU's first candidate invited to the final interview, Ryan Keller, was awarded the scholarship in 2005.
“The vast majority of U.S. recipients come from Ivy League schools, so this reflects positively on both our faculty and our growing reputation for preparing qualified candidates for graduate study,” said Scott Miller of the Asian and Near Eastern languages faculty and the scholarship coach.
In October 2000, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated $210 million to the University of Cambridge to establish the Gates Cambridge Trust. The donation created an international scholarship program to enable outstanding graduate students to study at the university.
Approximately 100 scholarships are awarded each year, and since the program’s inception, 621 students from 78 countries have completed graduate studies at the university. In selecting Gates Cambridge Scholars, the trustees consider each applicant’s intellectual ability, leadership capacity, academic achievement and desire to use his or her knowledge to contribute to society.
For more information, contact Ed Strauss at (212) 984-0972 or visit gates.scholarships.cam.ac.uk.
Writer: Elizabeth Kasper
