Megan Towle, a University of Notre Dame senior from Leawood, Kan., has been selected as one of 43 Marshall Scholarship winners for 2007. She was chosen from a pool of some 800 candidates nationwide to receive one of the most competitive and prestigious merit scholarships available to undergraduates.
The Marshall Scholarship allows students to attend any university in the United Kingdom for two or three years with all expenses paid. Towle plans to study for a graduate degree in humanitarian studies at the University of Liverpool, where she will continue her research on international health as a crucial element of peace-building.
Towle is the fourth Notre Dame student to receive a Marshall Scholarship in recent years. Peter Quaranto, a 2006 graduate who earned the honor last year, currently is using his award to pursue a masters degree in international politics and security studies at the University of Bradford.
An honors anthropology and international peace studies major, Towle has been a member of the Deans List each semester at Notre Dame. A top student in peace studies, she received the 2006 Yarrow Award from the Universitys Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and was a national finalist in the Truman Scholarship competition. As a freshman, Towle was selected as one of only 20 Presidential Scholars at Notre Dame, who are recognized as top academic students and potential leaders.
Towle spent this past summer working in the African nation of Lesotho, applying community health models to pediatric AIDS/HIV intervention. A paper on her research was presented at the American Anthropological Association meeting this fall and her research will be presented again at an international health conference at Stanford University next year. She also has conducted research in rural Mexico as a student at the Universidad de las Americas.
Towle is a founding member of both the Touching Tiny Lives Foundation, which helps children affected by HIV/AIDS in Lesotho, and the Youth Action Project of Lead-ND, which assists some 100 middle school students in leadership development and service learning in South Bend. She also serves as the national high school outreach coordinator for the Uganda Conflict Action Network.
Contact: Valerie Sayers, Office of Undergraduate&Post-Baccalaureate Fellowships, 574-631-7160, vsayers@nd.edu
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