Marshall Scholar: Madeline Grade
Madeline Grade, a senior in ASU’s Barrett, the Honors College and biomedical engineering major in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, was awarded one of the most prominent post-graduate scholarships given to college and university students in the United States. The Marshall Scholarship enables “young Americans of high ability” to pursue graduate studies at their choice of a leading university in the United Kingdom, funding two to three years of study. No more than 40 U.S. students are awarded the scholarships each year—only about 5 percent of the number of students who are nominated.
After graduating in spring 2012, Grade plans to study at University College London’s world-renowned UCL Institute of Neurology, housed at the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square. She’ll focus on neuroscience and clinical neuroscience and will assist in research at the hospital.
“I’m particularly interested in the application of engineering principles to medical treatments for the brain, such as deep brain implants for epilepsy treatment,” she explains.
As an undergraduate, Grade has an impressive record of accomplishments. Grade was selected to give a presentation at an American Academy of Neurology meeting—an opportunity rarely offered to an undergraduate—on the epilepsy research she has participated in at ASU’s Brain Dynamics Laboratory and Mayo Clinic, where she has been a premedical scholar since 2009.
Grade founded and continues to lead ASU’s first team to enter the International Genetically Engineered Machine student competition, the premier undergraduate synthetic biology competition.
She is an ASU Presidential Merit Scholarship winner. She has twice won Excellence in Engineering Leadership and the Han Hartjens Commitment to Service scholarships from Fulton Engineering. She was accepted into Alpha Eta Mu Beta, the biomedical engineering honor society. She has served as outreach coordinator and president of ASU’s student chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and co-founded the group’s Ambassador program. Grade has worked with PROJECT C.U.R.E. (Commission on Urgent Relief & Equipment), the ASU student chapter of Engineers Without Borders, and tutored middle school and high school students in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Grade is “thrilled” about the Marshall Scholarship and says she “definitely would not have been able to accomplish so much as an undergraduate without the support of my mentors at ASU and Mayo.”
Grade plans to pursue a medical degree, becoming a physician who both leads clinical research and treats patients.
