Gastfriend ’13 wins Truman prize

The Truman Scholarship is a nationally competitive scholarship for college juniors planning to pursue graduate degrees in public service fields. These public service fields can include careers in government, nonprofits and advocacy and education. The scholarship, which includes $30,000 in funding, also involves leadership training, career counseling, assistance in graduate school applications and other leadership-central programs.

Gastfriend, a Wilson School concentrator, said he plans to apply the Truman funds toward an MBA/MPP program, with the goal of implementing social entrepreneurship techniques to address poverty in developing countries.

“My goal is to have the greatest impact I can on reducing poverty in the developing world, and I think social entrepreneurship offers a range of sustainable and innovative solutions to ending poverty,” he said in an email.

On campus, Gastfriend has served for two years as the co-chair of the PCCV, which coordinates student engagement across the University. Don Dailey, the assistant director of civic engagement at the Pace Center, has worked with Gastfriend and recalled a time when Gastfriend volunteered to push a wheelchair-bound PCCV member around campus without being asked. “This came natural for him,” Dailey said in an email. “He can always be counted on to step forward for others.”

Gastfriend is also involved with Giving What We Can, an organization that aims to optimize charitable donations by seeking out efficient and reliable charities.

He has also focused his academic research on studying development in sub-Saharan Africa. He wrote his fall junior paper on improving management and accountability mechanisms in South African public health care. He is planning to incorporate market and business development in sub-Saharan Africa into his senior thesis.

Charlotte Weisberg ’13, who said she has known Gastfriend since working with him on Community Action as a freshman, said his personality and compassion stand out.

“I think that within seconds of meeting Daniel, anyone can tell that he is someone with an incredible heart,” she said in an email. “He works harder and more zestfully than any other person I’ve ever known, out of a fierce passion for learning and a commitment to alleviating world poverty.”

“He finds the whole learning process intensely exhilarating,” Weisberg added. “Because Daniel’s goals are so amazing, he is too busy looking forward and too modest to celebrate for long.”

Gastfriend also performs with the Footnotes a cappella group and is the alumni liaison for the group.

“Daniel is very passionate about helping people and is genuinely excited to get to know people,” Eric Walpert ’13, a fellow bass in the Footnotes, said in an email. “He’s a great singer and a huge asset to the group, but music aside, one thing that’s struck me most about being in the group with Dan is his enthusiasm. It shows through in everything he does.”

Gastfriend, who said he plans to spend time after graduation working in sub-Saharan Africa, added that he appreciates the flexibility the scholarship gives him for determining when and where to attend graduate school.

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Gastfriend added, “I feel that a lot of the other candidates were extremely deserving as well. I’m determined to pay it forward by using the scholarship to help make as big of an impact as I can on reducing poverty.”