Tucson Student Named Marshall Scholar

Ajit Divakaruni, a senior honors student in the College of Science at the University of Arizona, was named a 2006 Marshall Scholar, one of 40 students chosen in a nationwide competition. Ajit will use the scholarship to fund his graduate study in biochemistry at Cambridge University.

An extraordinary honors student with a triple major in biochemistry, mathematics, and molecular and cellular biology, at Cambridge Ajit hopes to pursue interdisciplinary research that may help us understand how to regulate diabetes and obesity. As an undergraduate, he has already gained substantial research experience in labs at the University of Arizona, Yale, and Cambridge. In addition to his skills as a researcher, Ajit has been active in the community and on campus, volunteering as a math and science tutor and helping to recruit university students.

Marshall Scholarships finance young Americans to study for a degree in the United Kingdom. Founded by a 1953 Act of Parliament, Marshall Scholarships are mainly funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and commemorate the humane ideals of the Marshall Plan conceived by General George C. Marshall. They express the continuing gratitude of the British people to their American counterparts. The last time a University of Arizona student received a Marshall Scholarship was 1996.

Members of the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Tucson congratulate Ajit on his accomplishments and wish him the very best at Cambridge.