April 25, 2005
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417
AMHERST, Mass.—Christine L. Hagan, a senior at Amherst College, has been awarded a Winston Churchill Foundation Scholarship to study chemical biology next year at Churchill College, Cambridge University, England. She is a graduate of John Jay High School in Cross River, N.Y., and is the daughter of Denise Lepicier and Edward Hagan of Brewster, N.Y.
Particularly concerned with the workings of diseases at the molecular level, Hagan, whose major at Amherst is chemistry, intends to pursue a Ph.D. in a biochemical field and eventually become a university professor. "I want to devote my life to continually learning more about why the intrinsic properties of molecules make them behave the way they do," she wrote in her application for this scholarship, and added, "I have also felt that work ought to benefit society directly."
Hagan won the Bevetz Prize at Amherst to support her senior honors thesis and a Pfizer Fellowship for summer research. She was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a national academic honor society, in 2004. Her honors research adviser, David Hansen, a professor of chemistry at Amherst, wrote that Hagan "is one of the finest students" he has taught; he characterized some of her exams as "works of art."
At Amherst College Hagan has been active in the Emergency Medical Service, the Newman Club and Five-College and Amherst College dance performances. She is also a member of the college quantitative skills working group.
The Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States was established in 1959 as an expression of American admiration for one of the great leaders of the free world. With the enthusiastic endorsement of Sir Winston, the Foundation undertook to encourage the exchange of knowledge and the sharing of ideas in science and technology between the United States and Great Britain. The Churchill Scholarship Program enables outstanding American students to do graduate work in engineering, mathematics and the physical and natural sciences at Churchill College, Cambridge University and the Churchill Fellowship Program enables American professors to spend a period of time in research at Churchill College.
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