Two Duke University seniors have been chosen for prestigious scholarships for postgraduate study abroad.
Ryan McCartney, of Chappaqua, N.Y., was one of 12 Americans selected for the George J. Mitchell Scholarship, which provides for a year of graduate study in Ireland.
Lee Pearson, of Spokane, Wash., was one of 40 students selected for the Marshall Scholarship, which provides two years of graduate-level study in the United Kingdom.
Pearson, a double major in civil and environmental engineering and biomedical engineering, has been actively involved in water resource projects in Uganda through Duke Engineers Without Borders. He also has been involved in a project that introduced a machine to Uganda that shells peanuts and coffee.
Pearson said he hopes to complete a master's degree in ecological economics at the University of Edinburgh in his first year and a master's in engineering for sustainable development at the University of Cambridge in his second year. He is still uncertain about long-term plans, although he thinks it will involve government sector work "where I can have the most impact."
He said he considers it vital to balance environmental protection and lessening our impact on Earth with human needs and economic issues. "I'm really interested in the whole sustainability movement," he said.
Pearson credits Duke's civil and environmental engineering program - -- particularly engineering professors Henri Gavin, David Schaad and Miguel Medina -- for fueling his interest in engineering. "The classes are small, and the faculty really do care about the students. Most of the classes are structured in a way that show how theories really do apply to the world," adding that several of his professors accompanied the students on their trips to Uganda.
In January, Pearson and nine of his classmates will move into the Home Depot Smart Home, a 6,000-square-foot home on Duke's campus that features a variety of eco-friendly and high-tech elements and serves as a living laboratory in which the students can modify and deploy new technology.
Established in 1953 to commemorate the Marshall Plan, the scholarships are awarded each year by the British government to "talented, independent and wide-ranging" young Americans to finance their study in the United Kingdom.
McCartney, a political science and philosophy double major, is the editorial page editor of The Chronicle, Duke's student-run newspaper. During his junior year, he was The Chronicle's editor-in-chief during the Duke lacrosse scandal. That year, he was selected by the Associated Collegiate Press as one of the top three college journalists in the country for his reporting on the lacrosse case and Hurricane Katrina.
McCartney founded a program while in high school to help orphans with mental and physical disabilities in Jamaica, and he continued to support that project while at Duke by organizing and taking part in a series of service trips to Kingston. His interest in mentoring and serving children with disabilities stems from his own personal experience. Growing up, he suffered severe dyslexia and was unable to read until he reached the fifth grade.
McCartney said his most influential class at Duke was an ethics class taught by political science professor Peter Euben. "I was a sophomore, when everything was coming together - -- I was more involved with The Chronicle, I was focusing in on political theory -- and that class really brought together everything I was mulling over about how to live a good life and an ethical life.
"That just led me to pursue opportunities that I was passionate about at Duke," he said, culminating with his decision to apply for the Mitchell Scholarship.
McCartney said he plans to spend the next year studying political communications in an interdisciplinary journalism program at Dublin City University. After that, he said he plans to attend law school and is unsure where that may lead.
The George J. Mitchell Scholarships are awarded annually to a dozen Americans under the age of 30 who exhibit the highest standards of academic excellence, leadership and community service. The awards, which can be used to pursue a year of post-graduate study at any university in Ireland, are named after the former U.S. Senate majority leader who spearheaded the historic Good Friday Agreement of 1998 that produced peace in Northern Ireland. The program seeks to link future American leaders with Ireland.