Shion Andrew Awarded Churchill Scholarship

Shion Andrew ’21 has been awarded the prestigious Churchill Scholarship, which offers exceptional American students the chance to pursue graduate studies at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge in England.

One of only 16 students nationwide to receive the scholarship this year, Andrew, a physics major, plans to conduct astrophysical research at Cambridge during the 2021–2022 academic year.

“I’ll be working on detecting new stellar-mass black holes and non-pulsar neutron stars in long-period binaries through Gaia proper motion measurements,” Andrew said.

Andrew will research fundamental questions about the evolution of the universe through mathematical modeling and computer science. She is interested in the versatility of the information extracted from large datasets and plans to explore this research interest further by collaborating with astrophysicists who explore the parameter space of these surveys.

The Churchill Scholarship draws applicants from over 100 American colleges and universities. The Winston Churchill Foundation, which administers the scholarship program, was founded in 1959 at the recommendation of Sir Winston Churchill, who wanted to ensure the participation of American graduate students at the College that was named in his honor.

Andrew is the latest of Harvey Mudd College’s 17 Churchill Scholarship winners, dating back to 1973, and is the first since 2011. Harvey Mudd has produced the largest number of Churchill Scholars from non-PhD-granting institutions.