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AMHERST, Mass.—Colin Godwin, a senior biology major at Amherst College, has been awarded a Winston Churchill Foundation Scholarship to study cancer biology with Dr. Ashok Venkitaraman next year at Cambridge University, England. A graduate of the Lakeside School in Seattle, Wash., Godwin is the son of David J. Godwin and Ginger Reeves of Mercer Island, Wash.
In his application, Godwin wrote that he hopes to pursue a career in the biomedical field. “I have always liked science,” he wrote, but his curiosity was scattered until “I began to take chemistry courses that provided me with the fundamental tools to understand molecular biology.” He compared the moment when he first truly understood that the cell was a “machine exquisitely designed by evolution for its purpose” to his experience after years of piano lessons when “suddenly, things clicked.”
Always musical, at Amherst, Godwin sang with the a cappella group Route 9 and played with the rock band Elements of Style. He also was a member of the sailing team and played intramural soccer. He conducted research in the summers at Amherst College, the University of Washington and F. Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society in his junior year.
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 Churchill, 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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