Megan Towle, the University of Notre Dame senior recently selected as a 2007 Marshall Scholarship winner, also has been chosen for the scholarship’s highest honor and was awarded the British Schools and Universities Foundation (BSUF) Marshall Scholarship.
The BSUF Scholarship is awarded to the Marshall Scholar whose academic pursuits are better served by study in the United Kingdom than in the United States and who demonstrates the potential to make significant contributions to the community and to society at large once those studies are completed. The BSUF considered all of this year’s winners and selected Towle as the scholar who best met those objectives.
The Marshall Scholarship allows students to attend any university in the United Kingdom for two or three years with all expenses paid. Selected as one of just 43 scholars nationwide from a pool of some 800 candidates, Towle plans to study for a graduate degree in humanitarian studies at the University of Liverpool, where she will continue her research on international health as a crucial element of peace-building.
Towle is the fourth Notre Dame student to receive a Marshall Scholarship in recent years. Peter Quaranto, a 2006 graduate who earned the honor last year, currently is using his award to pursue a master’s degree in international politics and security studies at the University of Bradford.
An honors anthropology and international peace studies major from Leawood, Kan., Towle has been a member of the Dean’s List each semester at Notre Dame. A top student in peace studies, she received the 2006 Yarrow Award from the University’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and was a national finalist in the Truman Scholarship competition. As a freshman, Towle was selected as one of only 20Presidential Scholars at Notre Dame, who are recognized as top academic students and potential leaders.
Towle spent this past summer working in the African nation of Lesotho, applying community health models to pediatric AIDS/HIV intervention. A paper on her research was presented at the American Anthropological Association meeting this fall and her research will be presented again at an international health conference at Stanford University next year. She also has conducted research in rural Mexico as a student at the Universidad de las Americas.
A founding member of both the Touching Tiny Lives Foundation, which helps children affected by HIV/AIDS in Lesotho, and the Youth Action Project of Lead-ND, which assists some 100 middle school students in leadership development and service learning in South Bend, Towle also serves as the national high school outreach coordinator for the Uganda Conflict Action Network.
Founded in 1961, BSUF has given $20 million in grants and scholarships to some 200 approved institutions.
Contact: Valerie Sayers, Office of Undergraduate & Post-Baccalaureate Fellowships, 574-631-7160, vsayers@nd.edu
Originally published by at newsinfo.nd.edu on December 14, 2006.