Three Yale students win Marshall Scholarships for study in Britain
Erika Lynn Green, David Shimer, and Amanda Royka.
Three Yale seniors have been named recipients of Marshall Scholarship awards following a rigorous and highly competitive selection process.
The three — Erika Lynn-Green, Amanda Royka, and David Shimer — are among 43 American students who will take degree courses at leading British universities beginning in September 2018.
“I’m proud to congratulate the recipients of this year’s Marshall Scholarship, who represent the brightest young minds and leaders the U.S. has to offer,” said Sir Kim Darroch, British ambassador to the United States. “For over six decades, the Marshall Scholarship has played an important part in maintaining the strong bonds of friendship between our two countries. This further expansion of scholarships continues to demonstrate our commitment to our special relationship with the U.S. and promoting strong academic ties.”
Christopher Fisher, who chairs the Marshall Scholarship Programme, added; “I look forward to welcoming another outstanding class of Marshall Scholars to the U.K. next year. Marshall Scholars are wonderful students, and their presence in British universities is a mutually enriching experience which creates great promise for our common future.”
This year’s class of Marshall Scholars is the largest in a decade. The Marshall Scholarships were established in 1953 as a British gesture of thanks to the United States for the assistance received after World War II under the Marshall Plan. Financed by the British government, the highly competitive scholarships provide an opportunity for American students who have demonstrated academic excellence and leadership to continue their studies for two to three years at a British university.
The expanded 2018 class also includes the first Marshall Scholarship funded by the Marshall Scholarship Endowment Fund. Created by the Association of Marshall Scholars, the official alumni organization for the Marshall Scholarship, the fund will support one scholarship in perpetuity beginning this year. The fund is made possible by donations from over 200 Marshall Scholars, as well as a matching grant by Marshall Scholar and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.
Over the years, Marshall Scholars have gone on to become university presidents, Pulitzer Prize-winners, MacArthur Fellows, Supreme Court justices, and more.
The biographies of Marshall Scholars from Yale follow.
Erika Lynn Green is a pre-med English major who grew up in Orange County, California. Her interests lie in bioethics, disparities in health and healthcare, and health policy, which she pursues in part through her work on non-communicable diseases at Yale School of Medicine’s Equity Research and Innovation Center. Her English department work, for which she has received two prizes, culminates in a senior essay on pseudo-empirical constructions of racialized bodies in the work of Maria Edgeworth. As advocacy chair of the Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project, Lynn-Green helped to launch the founding team for a Yale-student-run youth shelter in New Haven. She has been a member of the Yale Glee Club for four years and is president of the group this year. She was one of 13 students elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year. She will pursue degrees in global health systems theory and policy as well as development and global health at Queen Mary, University of London.
Amanda Royka, a native of North Haven, Connecticut, is majoring in cognitive science at Yale. Her studies have focused on animal cognition, and she has conducted research with domesticated dogs, Australian dingoes, and rhesus monkeys. Her senior thesis compares the cognitive abilities of domesticated dogs and Australian dingoes. As a Marshall Scholar, she plans to study evolutionary biology and comparative psychology at Queen Mary, University of London and the University of St. Andrews.
David Shimer, of Chappaqua, New York, will graduate in May with a B.A. and M.A. in history and Phi Beta Kappa honors. He was editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News, America’s oldest college daily newspaper, and reported from the Berlin bureau of The New York Times last summer. He is a Harry S. Truman Scholar. During the 2016 election cycle, Shimer interned for Hillary Clinton’s campaign policy and debate preparation teams. He will pursue a D.Phil. in international relations at the University of Oxford.
