College Senior Wins Gates Cambridge Scholarship
April 2006
College Senior Lauren Zeitels will begin graduate studies this fall at the University of Cambridge thanks to a scholarship from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
One of academia's most prestigious prizes, the Gates Cambridge Scholarship funds full-time study at the famed English institution for students from around the world. Zeitels is the 14th Penn student to win the award, which has been given to 527 students from 72 countries since its inception in 2000, according to the Penn Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.
The Warren, N.J. native has a 4.0 grade point average and will graduate from Penn in May with a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and a master's in chemistry. She plans to study medical genetics at Cambridge.
As a sophomore, Zeitels was recognized nationally when she was selected as a Barry M. Goldwater Scholar. At Penn, she has won the Roy and Diana Vagelos Challenge Award as well as the Dean's Scholar Award. She is also a member of the Vagelos Scholars Program in Biochemistry and the Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa as a junior. During the summer of 2003, she served as an intern at the National Institute on Aging. She is currently co-president of Penn's chapter of Habitat for Humanity.
The scholarship covers the full cost of study at Cambridge, including tuition and fees, a maintenance allowance, a further discretionary allowance for study-related activities.