McCormick senior Edward Pang was one of 14 students from around the nation to receive a 2015 Churchill Scholarship, an award that will allow him to study at the University of Cambridge.

Pang will join students from other institutions including Harvard University, University of Chicago and The Ohio State University and will pursue a masters in philosophy in materials science and metallurgy. The scholarship provides one year of support, according to a news release.

He credits his discovery of the scholarship to one of his professors, who encouraged him to look into the opportunity.

“I really didn’t think about applying maybe even like a year ago from today,” he said. “The more I read about it, the more awesome it seemed and last quarter that just took over my life.”

Pang is the 10th Northwestern student to receive the scholarship. The last before him was Kyle Kremer (Bienen ’12), who used his scholarship to study astrophysics at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge.

According to the news release, Pang was chosen from among 90 nominees nationwide to receive the award.

“(The application process) is pretty tough,” Pang said. “They value good prose as well as being able to communicate using scientific knowledge.”

Pang is a member of the NU Formula Racing Team, where he leads the composites sub-team, the group in charge of designing and fabricating the structures that make up the race cars. With the team, he said, he learned a lot of applicable skills he didn’t learn in the classroom, which helped him win the scholarship.

“Everything we do, especially in our department, is super theoretical, all just research” he said. “But when I go work on the race car it’s all about getting things done, it’s all about the engineering side and practical stuff.”

McCormick junior Tiernan Murrell works with Pang on the racing team where she heads the external affairs sub-team.

“We’re very proud of him,” she said. “Eddie is a very hard worker. We’re very excited to have him do this. A lot of our team members just go into the industry, take a job when they graduate and this is different.”

Peter W. Voorhees, a professor of materials science and engineering and Pang’s adviser, said in the release Pang will be a “marvelous ambassador” for the University.

“Edward is an articulate and brilliant student,” he said in the release. “He is the best student I have had in my undergraduate classes in the last decade and is one of the two most productive undergraduate researchers I’ve worked with in my 30-year career.”

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @marianaa_alfaro