Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 12, 2011 – Hannah M. Cunningham, a senior at Williams College, was one of two students nationally to receive a St. Andrew’s Scholarship from the St. Andrew’s Society of the State of New York. She was awarded a $30,000 grant for graduate study at a Scottish university.
A sociology major completing premedical requirements, Cunningham plans to pursue a master’s in global health and anthropology at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Social and Political Science. She then expects to attend medical school and work internationally.
At Williams Cunningham was a Class of 1960 Scholar in molecular biology, participating in extracurricular lectures and discussions with prominent molecular biologists and biochemists; a Class of 1957 Research Fellow, working with anthropology professor Peter Just to develop the syllabus for a course on masculinity; and a recipient of a Gaudino Scholarship for independent anthropological research on female genital modification among the Buganda Tribe in Uganda.
Inspired by her mother, a pediatric infectious disease specialist, and her aunt, a Peace Corps worker, Cunningham took a leave of absence from Williams in 2007 to spend six months in Masaka working with the Uganda Rural Fund. There she organized a women’s domestic violence prevention project, taught English and computer skills, and helped build a school and orphanage. She then relocated to Kampala, where she worked for two HIV clinics—one treatment based and the other research based—before returning to college.
“It was my time in Uganda that really gave my goals focus and direction,” Cunningham says.
She also spent a summer conducting research on the H1N1 virus with the Duke University Department of Infectious Disease. Her collaborative research has been published in the Journal of Clinical Virology, accepted for publication to the Journal of American College Health, and presented at two conferences on infectious disease and antimicrobial agents.
“A natural fieldworker, she does not enjoy theory for theory’s sake, but is capable of precise and effective applications of theory to empirical data,” sociology professor Olga Shevchenko wrote in a letter of recommendation for Cunningham. “Her chosen path is medicine, but she approaches it with an anthropologist’s sensibility and an interest in people’s lived experience and social worlds.”
Cunningham also has been active in student life at Williams, having played on the ice hockey and lacrosse teams, performing with the student symphony and concert choir, and serving as co-president and treasurer of Students for Social Justice, president and co-founder of Peace Talk Africa, and founding member of the All Acoustic Alliance.
The Saint Andrew’s Society Scholarship Program, created by the Saint Andrew’s Society at its bicentennial in 1956, has provided more than 150 scholarships “to promote cultural interchange and goodwill between Scotland and the United States,” according to the organization’s website. The society provides funding for two Scottish graduate students to study in the U.S. and two Scottish-American students to study in Scotland.
Cunningham is the third Williams student to be named a St. Andrew’s Scholar. Past winners are Anna Mullikin ’98 and Emily Isaacson ’04.
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Founded in 1793, Williams College is the second-oldest institution of higher learning in Massachusetts. The college’s 2,000 students are taught by a faculty noted for the quality of their teaching and research, and the achievement of academic goals includes active participation of students with faculty in their research. Students’ educational experience is enriched by the residential campus environment in Williamstown, Mass., which provides a host of opportunities for interaction with one another and with faculty beyond the classroom. Admission decisions are made regardless of a student’s financial ability, and the college provides grants and other assistance to meet the demonstrated needs of all who are admitted.
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Published April 12, 2011
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