Penn senior Srinivas Mandyam of Basking Ridge, New Jersey, has been awarded a Churchill Scholarship for one year of graduate research study at the University of Cambridge in England.  

The scholarship, which is offered annually to 15 people, is considered one of the most prestigious and competitive international fellowships available to American students planning graduate study in the United Kingdom. Churchill Scholars are chosen from select universities nationwide in the disciplines of science, mathematics and engineering. The scholarship covers tuition and travel expenses, provides a stipend and offers a chance at a research grant.

Mr. Mandyam will graduate from Penn in May with a BA in physics, mathematics and biophysics, along with a master’s in physics from the School of Arts and Sciences. At Cambridge, he plans to pursue an MPhil in physics. Upon returning to the US, he hopes to pursue a PhD in physics with the goal of becoming a professor of physics at a research university. 

A Penn Vagelos Molecular Life Sciences (MLS) Scholar, Mr. Mandyam’s current research is supported by the Vagelos Challenge Award. He has been working in A.T. Charlie Johnson’s experimental physics lab since 2017, synthesizing and studying two-dimensional materials. He is also supported by a College Alumni Society research grant to study public speaking anxiety remediation in young students and has received NASA’s Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium scholarship. As a junior, Mr. Mandyam was named a Goldwater Scholar and elected to Phi Beta Kappa.