Drennan '11 wins Gates Scholarship

Justine Drennan ’11 has received a scholarship from the Gates Cambridge Trust to study at the University of Cambridge for the 2011-12 academic year.

Drennan was informed of the award in an e-mail sent out Sunday.

A history major, Drennan will be pursuing the Master of Philosophy in International Relations program at Cambridge. Of the 30 winners from the United States, who were officially announced by the Gates Cambridge Trust on Wednesday, Drennan is the only student currently attending Princeton.

“I’m really honored,” Drennan said. “I kind of thought it was a mistake. It’s so much of an honor that I needed to see my profile up on the site. I’m really excited about next year.”

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship program was established in 2000, when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $210 million to the University of Cambridge. The trust provides 80-100 full-cost scholarships each year to students from outside the U.K. who have applied for and gained admission to Cambridge.

In addition to intellectual capacity and leadership ability, the Trust also evaluates applicants’ drive to improve the lives of others and their compatibility with Cambridge’s graduate programs, according to the scholarship’s website.

This year, there were 800 applicants from the United States. Of the applicants, 220 were ranked by academic departments in Cambridge and 80 were shortlisted to interview before the 30 winners were chosen.

Drennan’s research at Cambridge will focus on the ethnic relations between the Han majority and the Muslim Uighur minority in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang. Drennan, who is half Chinese, said she became interested in the region and the Uighur people after traveling to Xinjiang with her extended family the summer before her senior year of high school.

“I was really affected by the region,” Drennan said. “People there actually thought I was part Uighur. That got me to identify with that group a lot, and ever since then I’ve been keeping up with the news.”

Drennan feels that she has an advantage in studying the region because she understands both sides of the story, as some of her family members are sympathetic to the Han perspective.

The Master of Philosophy in International Relations program at Cambridge University is intended for people who, like Drennan, are not necessarily coming from backgrounds in international relations. Last year, Drennan’s first junior paper focused on the similarities between the development of Jerusalem and Boston, and her second paper covered the post-World War I peace settlement.

Her thesis will focus on comparing the experiences of Irish and Chinese workers on the transcontinental railroad. Drennan explained that the theme of immigration will be the common thread between her thesis and her graduate work next year.

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Of the three papers, Drennan noted, her thesis “is probably the one that’s most related to my interests next year because it has the Chinese element and it’s also about transnational narrative.”

History professor Yair Mintzker, who served as Drennan’s academic advisor, said the history department was proud of Drennan.

“There are a great many worthy candidates for the Gates [scholarship], but only a very small, top group of students ends up getting it,” Mintzker said. “I knew that Justine had the potential to win one of the highly prestigious British scholarships, but it’s never a sure bet.”

After completing her studies at Cambridge, Drennan said, she hopes to pursue a career in international journalism and in particular would like to cover the perspectives of minorities and underrepresented peoples. She added that her interest in the field was sparked by a journalism class she took at the University with professor Thanassis Cambanis as well as a reporting internship she held in the summer of 2009 with New American Media in San Francisco.

Aside from her studies, Drennan is a member of the Tigressions a cappella group, the Princeton Chapel Choir and the International Food Co-op.