PASADENA, Calif.--California Institute of Technology student Vivek Narsimhan has been awarded a Churchill Scholarship for the academic year 2008–09. The chemical engineering major plans to complete the Certificate in Advanced Mathematics (Maths Part III) at Churchill College, University of Cambridge.
Narsimhan, whose father is an agricultural and biological engineer and mother is a plant biologist, both at Purdue University, grew up in West Lafayette, Indiana. He has distinguished himself at Caltech in several ways. He served as the vice president of the student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He's also been cocaptain of the tennis team for the past two years. He won the Caltech Upper Class Merit Award, based on academic merit and creative accomplishments, which covered most of his tuition for the past two years, as well as the Robert Byrd Scholarship for outstanding academic achievement from the U.S. Department of Education three years in a row. He also served as an upper-class counselor at Caltech's freshman orientation, called Frosh Camp.
"He's an absolutely stellar student on all fronts. He's a top student academically, and he's a real leader among the students," says Richard Flagan, McCollum-Corcoran Professor of Chemical Engineering, professor of environmental science and engineering, and executive officer for chemical engineering.
At Caltech, Narsimhan modeled the behavior of soft biomaterials, which can be applied to making shape-changing replacement lenses for cataract patients. Lauren Stolper, Caltech's director of fellowships advising and study abroad, says that because of this background, "he will be a rare bird, perhaps, in the Mathematics Part III program, where pure and applied mathematicians are the norm." But, she adds, "Vivek's ability to undertake graduate work in mathematics at perhaps the most sought-after mathematics graduate program in the world at Cambridge illustrates the amazingly rigorous quantitative training Caltech students receive from our faculty regardless of their academic option."
Competition for the Churchill Scholarship, of which 13 were awarded, grew by 60 percent this year after the Churchill Foundation expanded the number of universities eligible to compete. Narsimhan faced a particular challenge in choosing math, as he vied with more than a third of the applicant pool. He is the seventh Caltech student within the past decade to win the scholarship.
The one-year scholarship will pay for Narsimhan's school-related fees, living allowance, round trip airfare for a visit home, and some research costs, for an award totaling nearly $50,000.
The University of Cambridge, formed in 1209, has 31 colleges. While many of them cover all subjects, Churchill College, which was founded in 1958 as the national memorial to Winston Churchill, maintains a focus on science and engineering. Of the approximately 700 students in the college, a third are graduate students.
Narsimhan says he is excited about the opportunity not only because he wants to tackle more quantitative science in the future, but also because he's not done much travel abroad. "Living in another country will be an eye-opening experience," he says.
