Now in our fourth year, the Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships works with students from all of U-M’s schools and colleges to recruit and nominate students for some of the most prestigious academic programs in the world.  Despite all the challenges of this academic year, our applicants soared to new heights in these competitions. 

Here are some of the highlights from the year: 

Amytess Girgis, a senior in the LSA Honors Program and Political Science, won a Rhodes Scholarship, which provides full funding for two to four years of postgraduate study at the University of Oxford. She will pursue an MPhil in Politics before returning to the US for law school.

The Rhodes Scholarship is often considered among the most prestigious international scholarship programs. 

Amytess is U-M’s 29th recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship and third in the last four years.

Max Hammer, a senior in the LSA Honors Program and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, won the Marshall Scholarship.  Max will pursue a 1-year master’s degree in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and then a 1-year master’s in drug discovery at University College London before returning to the US to complete his MD-PhD at the University of California, San Francisco.  Max is U-M’s 11th Marshall Scholar and fourth in the last three years.

Jacob Florian, a senior in Chemical Engineering, won the Churchill Scholarship which provides full funding for a 1-year master’s degree at the University of Cambridge.  Jacob will complete an MPhil by research in chemical engineering before returning to the US for his PhD at Stanford.  Jacob is U-M’s 15th Churchill Scholar and first since 2017.

Marilu Duque, a master’s degree candidate in the School of Information, became U-M’s first recipient of the Mitchell Scholarship, which provides full funding for a 1-year master’s degree in either the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland. She will complete a master’s degree in cybersecurity at Technical University Dublin. 

STEM Research continues to be one of U-M's strongest ares in national awards. 

Four U-M students received the Goldwater Scholarship this year: John Haviland, a junior in Honors Mathematics; Sophie Kriz and Henry Fleischmann, both sophomores in Honors Mathematics; and Karthik Ravi, a junior in Biology, Health and Society. The Goldwater Scholarship is considered the most prestigious award for undergraduate students who will pursue research careers in STEM. U-M ranks 7th nationally with 85 Goldwater Scholars since the program was created in 1986. 

Two U-M students, John Haviland and Joshua Sodicoff, a junior in Biomedical Engineering, were nominated for the Astronaut Scholarship, a $15,000 award for students who will pursue research careers in STEM. The recipient will be announced in June. Finally, U-M’s own $5,000 STEM Research Career Award this year went to Nicholas Cemalovic, a sophomore in Chemistry and the Michigan Research and Discovery Scholars Program.

U-M ranked 5th in the nation for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship with 48 fellows. The NSF GRF Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions. Along with graudate students, undergraduate seniors at U-M are eligible for the NSF GRF and encouraged to apply! 

Six U-M students were selected for the Schwarzman Scholars Program, a 1-year leadership development program at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University: Karuna Nandkumar, a senior in the Ford School of Public Policy, Jiaheng He, a senior in physics; Ziqi Wang, a senior in financial mathematics; Philip Ruffini, a graduate of the Ross School of Business; and two LSA graduates, John Petrie (philosophy and economics) and Shivan Singh (economics). 

Promise Kim, a senior in History and Korean studies, was selected to the Yenching Scholars Program, a fully-funded 2-year master’s degree and leadership program at Peking University.  She is the 7th U-M scholar selected to the program and first since 2018.

Finally, for the first time since 2017, we are proud to recognize a U-M truman Scholar!

Catherine Hadley was selected as U-M’s 28th Truman Scholar.  Cat is a returning student and mother of two who transferred to U-M last fall from Washtenaw Community College. The Truman Scholarship is among the most prestigious national awards for students who intend to pursue careers in public service.  Cat has been admitted to U-M’s master’s in social work program and intends to pursue a career in state politics.

In addition to these recipients, ONSF nominated dozens of outstanding U-M students and future leaders who completed application processes for these highly competitive awards.  Though not selected this year, many of them will go on to top graduate and professional programs in the future.  

For more information on ONSF or national scholarship opportunities, please visit https://lsa.umich.edu/onsf.