Princeton alumna Natasha Degen '06 won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, an award established by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to send distinguished students to pursue studies at Cambridge University in England.
Degen majored in art and archaeology and earned a certificate from the Wilson School. During her time at Princeton, Degen balanced her interests in art history and journalism.
"I applied for the Gates Scholarship because I wrote my senior thesis on British art and history and wanted to continue studying both," Degen said in an email from Beijing, where she's been since September. "So pursuing graduate work in the UK seemed ideal."
Degen is also a Luce Scholar, and she is in China for a year to work at a newspaper. The Luce Scholars Program provides 15 Americans with yearlong internships and stipends in Asia.
The program arranged for her to work on the arts staff of China Daily, an English-language newspaper, "writing features stories and covering the Beijing art scene and the Chinese art market," she said.
Though Degen is the only Princetonian among the 48 students who won the award this year, five other members of the Class of 2006 — Sara Asrat, Suneel Bhat, Christopher Bohn, Kara Gaston and Daniel Greco — won the award last year.
Degen said she plans to continue studying art history by pursuing Cambridge's Text and Image option of its M.Phil. program.
She was managing editor at The Daily Princetonian and spent a few summers working for The Nation, Artforum and the Village Voice.
She also wrote a freelance article for The New York Times on non-Asian parents who are encouraging their children to learn Chinese.
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