Three Rutgers University students are among 45 graduating seniors nationwide to earn prestigious scholarships from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to pursue graduate studies at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Rutgers students received more Gates scholarships this year than students at any public university in the United States.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarships, established in 2000 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, cover all fees and living expenses for a student’s full-time master’s or doctoral studies at Cambridge, one of the oldest and most esteemed universities in the English-speaking world. Depending on the student’s program of study, a scholarship’s value could exceed $50,000 annually for one to four years.

Rutgers’ 2008 Gates Cambridge Scholars are Michael Hayoun, double-majoring in cell biology and neuroscience and in psychology, with a certificate in behavioral pharmacology; Suzanne Pilaar, double-majoring in paleoecology and in evolutionary anthropology; and Brian Spatocco, majoring in materials science and engineering.

Among the 33 U.S. universities to have Gates scholars this year, only Harvard University, with four recipients, has more than Rutgers. Eight other universities, including Princeton, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have two recipients each. Scholarships to students outside the United States will be awarded later this year.

The Rutgers students have applied to pursue master of philosophy degrees at Cambridge: Hayoun in bioscience enterprise, Pilaar in archaeological science, and Spatocco in micro- and nanotechnology.

Competition for Gates Cambridge Scholarships is intense. Out of 635 U.S. applicants, the foundation interviewed 119 students for this year’s 45 awards. Worldwide, the foundation interviews as many as 300 candidates annually for about 110 scholarship awards.

Rutgers also had a Gates Cambridge Scholar, Joseph Califf, in 2001, the first year the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded the scholarships.

About the students

Michael Hayoun

Hayoun has been active in neuroscience research, both at Rutgers and in pharmaceutical company laboratories. He will combine the business skills he gains at Cambridge with future M.D./Ph.D. studies to bridge the fields of laboratory and clinical medicine. Hayoun is a student leader, serving as co-president of the Rutgers American Medical Student Association for two years. He is a firefighter and emergency medical technician, and pursues karate, figure skating, and photography. He received the Boy Scouts' National Young American Award and an honorable mention in the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship competition.

Suzanne Pilaar

Pilaar has conducted research on environmental interactions shown in the archaeological record, working at Rutgers, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Before she begins her studies at Cambridge, she will spend the summer excavating at a 4,000-year-old site in southern Turkey. She is founder of the Rutgers chapter of Lambda Alpha, a national honor society, and serves as president of the university’s Anthropology Club. She will study in St. John’s College at Cambridge University, where she will examine the human diet and use of animal resources in early societies.

Brian Spatocco

Spatocco has researched the mechanics of two-dimensional self-assembly of particles on liquid interfaces. He is president of the Engineering Governing Council, the student governing association in the Rutgers School of Engineering. In that role, he serves as the engineering school’s main student representative to Rutgers’ administration and state officials. In his sophomore year, he studied Korean language and feminism in South Korea and established a grassroots tutoring enterprise. He is interested in the Cambridge program’s combination of business and technology, hoping to pursue a career in nanotechnology venture capitalism.