U.S. Naval Academy Midshipmen 1st Class (senior) Margaret Gilroy, of Hillsborough, N.J. and James Mackovjak, of Silverdale, Wash., were recently selected as a 2014 Gates Cambridge Scholars. Forty U.S. students were awarded the Gates Cambridge Scholarship this year.
The Gates Cambridge Scholarship program was established in 2000 and funded by a $210 million donation to the University of Cambridge by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It enables academically outstanding students from outside the United Kingdom with a strong interest in social leadership and responsibility to pursue graduate study at Cambridge.
Gilroy, 21, is currently an honors systems engineering major and Spanish minor at the Naval Academy. She is also the captain of the Naval Academy marathon team, and founder of the academy’s Girls on the Run volunteer program. Gilroy is conducting research in radiation detection, simulation and mapping as a Bowman Scholar, a scholarship awarded to second class (junior) midshipmen interested in pursuing a future in the nuclear Navy.
Gilroy plans to earn a Master of Philosophy in nuclear energy at the University of Cambridge, after which she will continue her training as a Navy submarine officer.
Mackovjak, 21, is a graduate of Central Kitsap High School and is currently a systems engineering honors major, a member of the academy’s triathlon team, and president of the Naval Academy’s chapters of the American Nuclear Society Chapter and the Tau Beta Pi Honor Society.
Mackovjak plans to earn a Master of Philosophy in energy technologies at the University of Cambridge, after which he will continue his training as a Navy pilot.
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For more information about Gates Scholars, visit the Gates Cambridge Scholarship website: http://www.gatesscholar.org/.
