Senior wins 2012 Gates Cambridge Scholarship

A Cornell senior, Brittany Chao ’12, has received a 2012 Gates Cambridge Scholarship, which supports one to four years of post-baccalaureate study in any field at the University of Cambridge, to enable scholars under 30 years old from any part of the world outside of the United Kingdom to attend the prestigious school.

Chao was one of 40 Gates Cambridge Scholars from the U.S. selected from a pool of 750 applicants. Another 50 scholars from other countries will be selected later this spring.

Chao, a biology major with a concentration in microbiology in the College of Arts and Sciences, will earn an master’s in biological science in the Department of Pathology at Cambridge. Since 2009 she has conducted research on tomato pathogens in the lab of Alan Collmer, a professor in the Departments of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology. The last two summers she worked in microbiology and in physiology labs at Tufts University.

She is a choreographer and dancer with Illuminations Chinese Dance Group, is a member of the Alpha Phi Omega Service Fraternity, and works as a student administrative assistant in the College of Arts and Sciences.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship was established by the Gates Cambridge Scholarship Trust and is funded through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.