Multiple Degrees and the Marshall Scholarship

Jeff Eaton 2008 Arts & Sciences Dean's Medalist 2008 Marshall Scholar 2006 Goldwater Scholar 2005 Sophomore Medalist

One of the highest awards available to college graduates in the United States is the Marshall Scholarship, which gives awardees a full scholarship for graduate study in any university in the United Kingdom. Last spring, a Marshall Scholarship was awarded to Jeff Eaton.

The recipients of the Marshall Scholarship are among the best and brightest in America. Jeff is no exception, displaying both breadth and depth in his academic achievements.

Last June the Department of Mathematics presented to Jeff the award for Outstanding Graduating Bachelor of Science when he earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics (Summa Cum Laude). Amazingly, at the same time he also earned a Master’s degree in Statistics, a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology (also Summa Cum Laude), and a Minor in Music.

This plethora of degrees is merely a single point of light in a glowing undergraduate career.

Jeff’s undergraduate education began in autumn of 2003. He came to the University of Washington after his sophomore year in high school via the UW’s Academy for Young Scholars. By the following summer, Jeff had declared as a Mathematics major. Encouraged by Professor Jim Morrow (see article, page 8), he would compete twice in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM), earning Honorable Mention and Meritorious Winner status with his teammates.

Jeff’s participation in the MCM sparked a further interest in mathematical modeling that would guide the focus of his future studies. Says Jeff, “I became aware of what a powerful tool mathematical modeling is and how important mathematical models are to a wide variety of disciplines, and even important policy decisions.”

Jeff capped his sophomore year by earning the UW’s Sophomore Medal. His hard work garnered further awards the following year: The College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Award, the Washington Research Foundation’s Research Fellowship for Advanced Undergraduates, and finally the Goldwater Scholarship.

The purpose of the Goldwater Scholarship, established by Congress to commemorate Barry Goldwater, is “to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields.” Jeff won the scholarship in 2006 along with fellow MCM team member Owen Biesel. That same year Eliana Hechter, another of Jeff’s MCM collaborators and former Goldwater Scholar herself, was selected to be a Rhodes Scholar. Though he couldn’t know it at the time, Jeff’s own success was destined to mirror Eliana’s.

The following year took Jeff on a journey of research to South Africa via a Mary Gates Venture Fellowship. There, under the guidance of UW Sociology Professor Samuel J. Clark, Jeff’s mathematical modeling skills were put to use in an undergraduate research project at the University of Witwatersrand’s Agincourt Health and Population Unit (AHPU). The mission of the AHPU is to provide reliable longitudinal population-based health and demographic information for health workers in Africa. Studying health care and economic development in rural villages, Jeff worked on a mathematical model of potential HIV intervention scenarios.

As Clark told University Week, “Jeff is an exceptionally gifted scholar who has impressed me with both his talent and his gracious, engaging approach to life.”

For his final undergraduate year, Jeff returned to Seattle, closing in on his three degrees while engaging in mathematical teaching as a TA for the Department’s honors calculus sequence, Math 334/5/6. “He was a superb TA,” says Professor Jim Morrow, under whom Jeff worked directly in the course.

Application for Marshall Scholarships began in the autumn of 2007. Jeff participated in four mock-interviews to help him prepare for the official interview with the Marshall Commission. Competition for the prestigious award was suitably steep.

“The caliber of applicants was very high,” said British Ambassador to the United States Sir Nigel Sheinwald in a press release, “and those selected will undoubtedly go on to help strengthen the unique partnership between the United States and the United Kingdom.”

When he learned he’d been selected as a Marshall Scholar, Jeff was also a finalist in the running for the Rhodes Scholarship. His interest in the graduate program at the Imperial College in London, which he considers to be doing the best work in infectious disease epidemiology, guided his choice between these two great honors. As the Rhodes Scholarship grants study at Oxford, he chose to decline the Rhodes interview and take the path of a Marshall Scholar.

It is an interesting side-note that Jeff’s case bears similarities with that of Mathematics alumnus Eliana Hecter, his former MCM teammate and fellow Goldwater Scholar. Selected as a Rhodes Scholar in 2006, Eliana was also offered the Marshall Scholarship that year. Eliana turned it down in favor of the Rhodes—a reversal of Jeff’s own decision.

Jeff now pursues his Ph.D. at the Imperial College in London where he combines knowledge from all three of his degrees in the study of the mathematical modeling of infectious disease epidemics. The Department of Mathematics is proud to wish him the best in his post-graduate career and beyond.

Mike Munz