Three Yale Students Awarded Marshall Scholarships

Two Yale College seniors and a third-year law student will be headed to the United Kingdom next year as recipients of prestigious Marshall scholarships.

The students are James Luccarelli ‘10, Anna Jo Bodurtha Smith ‘10 and Nabiha Syed.

The Marshall Scholarships were established in 1953 as a British gesture of thanks to the people of the United States for the assistance received after the Second World War under the Marshall Plan. Financed by the British government, the scholarships provide an opportunity for American students who have demonstrated academic excellence and leadership to continue their studies for two to three years at the British university of their choice.

Smith, from Ashland, Virginia, is majoring in sociology and child health, and plans on a career developing and implementing public policy for children’s health and early childhood educational programs. She has already worked researching and advocating for early childhood programs as an intern in Voices for Virginia’s Children (leading to a $13 million increase in funding for childcare subsidies in Virginia), as a Liman Fellow for the All Our Kin program in New Haven and as a fellow at the Zigler Center at Yale. Smith will pursue a master’s degree in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a second master’s degree in public policy and management from the London School of Economics. Having finished all her pre-med requirements at Yale, Smith plans on attending medical school in the United States after her two years of study in London. She intends to specialize in the field of “social and behavioral pediatrics.” A freshman counselor at Morse College, Smith serves on the Dwight Hall board of directors.

Luccarelli, from New York, New York, will pursue a D.Phil. at Oxford University, working in the chemistry research laboratory of Andrew Hamilton, former Yale provost and now Oxford’s vice-chancellor. Luccarelli’s research in Oxford, focusing on protein to protein interactions, might eventually lead to developing new drugs and improving current drugs to treat disease. At Yale, Luccarelli, who is pursuing a joint B.S./M.S. degree, worked in the Jorgensen Lab helping to develop algorithms for predicting the effectiveness of particular drugs. He is also a prize debater, who will represent Yale at the 2010 World Championships in Antalya, Turkey. He has extensive experience as an EMT responder, and is chief of operations of Yale EMS, where he began a scholarship program to fund 20 students annually for EMT training. He is coxwain of the Yale heavyweight crew, and intends to continue rowing for Oxford. After finishing his doctorate at Oxford, Luccarelli plans to earn a medical degree in the United States, with the goal of pursuing scientific research.

Syed will undertake a one-year program at Oxford in comparative media law and policy. As required by the rules of the Marshall Scholarship, she was endorsed by her undergraduate institution, Johns Hopkins.