University of Rochester senior Loren Cerami has been selected to receive a prestigious Churchill Scholarship. Starting this fall, she will spend a year at Cambridge University's Churchill College pursuing a master's degree in engineering.
The scholarships are presented annually by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States, which makes approximately 10 awards of between $25,000 and $27,000 each for graduate study in engineering, mathematics, or science. Students are chosen on the basis of outstanding academic achievement, original and creative work, and character and concern for critical problems facing society.
Cerami will receive a bachelor of science degree in optics this May from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. While at Rochester, Cerami played for four years on the varsity women's soccer team. She is president of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, and works in the University's tutoring program. She is a resident of Erie, Penn., where she graduated from McDowell High School.
After her year in England, Cerami will return to the United States to pursue a doctoral degree in one of the fields of optics, applied physics, or electrical engineering.
The Churchill Foundation Scholarship Program is open to students at 63 participating institutions, which, in addition to the University of Rochester, include such schools as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and Cornell Universities. Each school can nominate up to two students for a scholarship. Cerami is the eighth Rochester student to receive a Churchill Scholarship since the University was invited to participate in the program in 1982.
The University of Rochester (on the web at www.rochester.edu) is one of the smallest of the most distinguished private universities in the country. Fewer than 3,700 undergraduates are enrolled in its College, the home of arts, sciences, and engineering programs. College learning centers on the individual with a core mission of research and discovery for each student.