Five Stanford students — Angelina Chan ’24, Ben Fischer ’24, Jaeah Kim ’25, Alina Wilson ’24 and Jessica Yan ’24 — were named 2025 Marshall Scholars on Dec. 16, joining this year’s 31 other winners in pursuing graduate degrees in the United Kingdom.
Founded in 1953, the Marshall Scholarship funds the pursuit of up to three years of fully-funded graduate study for American students in any field and at any university in the U.K. and is dedicated to former U.S. Secretary of State and Army Gen. George Marshall.
“Marshall Scholars continue to represent the very best of American society, dedicating their time and effort to address some of the great challenges of our time,” Dame Karen Pierce, British Ambassador to the US, wrote on the Marshall Scholarship’s official website.
Though all five students will head to the U.K. soon, they all walked disparate paths to reach the scholarship, citing different inspirations that steered their paths.
Chan joined Stanford in her sophomore year after transferring from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Chan majored in human biology and minored in chemistry and English and will begin her doctorate next fall at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, the same institute where James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.
Chan aims to design new cancer-targeting therapeutic strategies and teach future generations of scientists by owning her own lab as a principal investigator. During her graduate studies, she plans to extend her approach to reprogramming genetic code through new methods from chemical and synthetic biology.
Fischer majored in product design and minored in international relations and intends to research internet protocols with the goal of fostering safer, more reliable and more civically-minded social media platforms.
“There is a promise, inherent, that these platforms can actually connect us, not set us further apart,” Fischer said.
Fischer was vice president of the Stanford Mock Trial Team, which he said was an essential part of his college experience, and built Lighthouse, a mobile app that kickstarts connection, allowing users to spontaneously video call friends by passively broadcasting their availability.
Dustin Liu, Stanford Product Design lecturer and mentor, said Fischer “possesses the curiosity, grit, competence and passion needed to thrive in his emerging field of interest.”
Kim will graduate from Stanford in 2025 with a bachelor’s degree in biology. She has been devoted to the health innovation field ever since being inspired by the teachers and materials provided by the course “Needs Finding in Healthcare,” she said.
Upon receiving the Marshall Scholarship, Kim expressed deep gratitude for all the people that guided her journey towards this milestone, including engineering professor Paul Yock, neuroscience professor Karl Deisseroth and Diana Murk, assistant dean and manager of the Office of Global Scholarships.
“It was very meaningful to me to be a part of this historic connection between two nations, and I am honored to contribute to this enduring partnership to address shared global challenges,” Kim said.
Wilson majored in human biology and will be pursuing a master’s of science in control of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in her first year and the University of Oxford in her second year.
When living in Oklahoma City, Wilson founded Vital Voices Global Partnership, a service organization that sought to increase COVID-19 vaccine rates by teaching 25 young Black leaders to become relational organizers.
“You find where the gaps in your community are, and you learn how to fill them,” Wilson said about her motivation to found the organization. Wilson also worked with Doctors Without Borders and Gavi, the vaccine alliance in Geneva, Switzerland.
“There are so many players involved in something like reducing vaccine-preventable deaths, which is something I hope to be part of one day,” Wilson said.
Yan will be spending her first year at the University of Oxford studying the intersection of economics and climate.
Yan was inspired to pursue climate policy after speaking with Chile’s minister of the environment while she was studying abroad, who told her that it is the responsibility of the U.S. to support other countries and their climate policies because of its resources. Once she finishes her graduate studies, Yan hopes to come back to the United States and work in the federal or state government to be involved in finding and applying climate solutions.
“Marshall Scholars are powerful advocates for excellence across a wide range of disciplines — it is fantastic to see such a diverse group of future leaders,” John Raine, the chair of the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission, wrote in a statement on the Marshall Scholarship website.
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