Ajit Divakaruni (Photo, as it appears on www.mse.arizona.edu)

Ajit Divakaruni, 22, a senior honors student at College of Science at University of Arizona (UA), has been named a 2006 Marshall Scholar, one of 40 students chosen in a nationwide competition on Dec. 5. Divakaruni will use the scholarship to fund his graduate study in biochemistry at Cambridge University. Marshall Scholarship is a prestigious national award that provides recipients with full funding for two or three years of graduate study in the United Kingdom.

Divakaruni, a Flinn Scholar who attended Saguaro High School in Scottsdale, Ariz., is doing a triple major in biochemistry, mathematics and molecular and cellular biology. He expects to complete an honors thesis in each of his three majors.

He has worked as an undergraduate researcher at his university's labs, and in labs at Cambridge University and Yale University. At Cambridge, he hopes to pursue an interdisciplinary understanding of metabolic regulation and the biochemistry of uncoupling proteins. This research may be an important catalyst in understanding how to regulate diabetes and obesity.

Divakaruni also has been engaged in campus and community activities. He volunteers as a tutor in local schools, using his intellectual and interpersonal skills to encourage young students to pursue math and science. He has actively recruited prospective UA students and been in the UA honorary system since his freshman year, and is currently a member of Bobcats. Divakaruni will return to Cambridge, back to the same lab he started out in as an undergraduate fish out of water. He plans on extending the award for a third year to finish a doctorate in biochemistry.

The last UA student to win a Marshall Scholarship was Ian Larkin in 1996. Larkin graduated from from the university with two degrees, one in economics and Chinese and another in Japanese. He is currently studying business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Marshall Scholarships finance young Americans to study for a degree in the U.K. Founded by a 1953 Act of Parliament, Marshall Scholarships are mainly funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and commemorate the humane ideals of the Marshall Plan conceived by General George C. Marshall. They express the continuing gratitude of the British people to their American counterparts.

Divakaruni and two other students from his university, Michelle Hertzfeld (international studies and East Asian studies) and Stephanie Freeman (chemical engineering) earned three of 17 interview slots for the Los Angeles region.

Hertzfeld was named first alternate and will become a Marshall Scholar if anyone from the region declines the scholarship.

Because Divakaruni attends UA, he competed against 93 other nominees in the Los Angeles region. The group of nominees was narrowed down to 17 students - who were interviewed in Los Angeles - and four students were awarded the scholarship. After his studies are completed, Divakaruni said he hopes to become a biochemistry professor one day because he realizes the opportunities his academic interests and successes have afforded him.

In his spare time, Divakurni enjoys athletics (practicing and spectating), cooking, taking long naps, and eating brownies.