Princeton Weekly Bulletin January 11, 1999

---

Seniors win Rhodes, Marshall scholarships

Two seniors have received scholarships for two years of study in Great Britain after graduation. Sophie Dumont was awarded one of 11 Rhodes Scholarships for Canadians, and Richard Johnston won a Marshall Scholarship.

The Rhodes Scholarships, which fund study at Oxford University, were established in 1902 by British entrepreneur and philanthropist Cecil Rhodes. Thirty-two students from the United States and approximately three dozen others from countries of the former British Commonwealth receive them each year. The Marshall Scholarship is awarded annually by the British Embassy to recognize academic accomplishment and leadership potential. Forty American students receive funding for two or three years of study at the British institution of their choice. The British government began the program in 1953 in appreciation of the American relief provided after World War II under the Marshall Plan.

Dumont, a physics major, intends to continue her physics studies at Oxford and looks forward to a career in research. Interested in both physics and molecular biology, she has done research on bacterial chemotaxis and thermotaxis, examining how different kinds of behavior in bacteria respond to chemical stimuli. She is especially interested in how temperature changes behavior.

Johnston plans to earn master's degrees in 20th century literature and in education at the University of Sussex. From Spartanburg, S.C., he is writing a series of "very Southern" narrative poems for his senior thesis. His subjects include his grandfather, who flew the mail into Spartanburg during the 1930s, and Anderson's Mill, near his home ("The poem is about rust," he says, "the shell of what used to be there, suspended in rust").

 

---