Three Harvard college students will take their passions for journalism, well being fairness, and schooling fairness to the UK subsequent yr as members of the 2025 Marshall Class. Ryan Doan-Nguyen, John Lin, and Laila Nasher are amongst 36 college students nationwide to obtain 2025 Marshall Scholarships, which assist two years of examine at a U.Ok. faculty or college.
Ryan Doan-Nguyen
Joint focus in Historical past & Literature and Authorities, with a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, Rights
Doan-Nguyen ’25, of Westborough, Massachusetts, strives to bridge analysis, writing, and advocacy in journalism and historical past. Having grown up listening to his household’s tales about fleeing the Vietnam Warfare as refugees, he’s obsessed with amplifying marginalized voices in his work. His senior thesis contains oral historical past interviews with 40 Vietnamese refugees impacted by imperialism.
“There’s a lot data and innovation and methods of thought and approaching the world which might be excluded due to the best way by which we worth sure voices greater than others,” Doan-Nguyen stated. “I’m making an attempt to assist break that down within the work that I do.”
The evening the Mather Home resident discovered that he had been named a Marshall Scholar, he ran straight to his roommate to share the excellent news. Then he referred to as his household and his closest mentors.
“It’s the prospect of a lifetime, and I didn’t anticipate to obtain it within the slightest,” Doan-Nguyen stated. “I simply bear in mind receiving the decision and being so overwhelmed with gratitude.”
Doan-Nguyen is a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Analysis Fellow, an editor for The Harvard Crimson, and co-founder of a Harvard chapter of the Asian American Journalists Affiliation. He served beforehand on the JFK Jr. Discussion board Committee at Harvard Kennedy Faculty and on the board of the Harvard Vietnamese Affiliation.
Doan-Nguyen plans to attend the College of Oxford, the place he’ll examine international and imperial historical past the primary yr and U.S. historical past the second yr.
John Lin
Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology; secondary in International Well being and Well being Coverage
Lin ’25, of Boston, needs to know what totally different uncommon illnesses have in frequent, and what components hyperlink them collectively.
As a member of the Greka Lab on the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Lin research how cells harness cargo receptors to acknowledge, degrade, or lure misfolded proteins. He has investigated how cargo receptors regulate illness severity in a uncommon kidney sickness and is making use of his findings to different uncommon illnesses.
“We’re discovering that if you happen to goal these cargo receptors, you may clear misfolded protein in every of those illnesses, suggesting that these totally different misfolded proteins are trapped by this frequent mechanism,” Lin stated. “Simply by concentrating on these frequent pathways, you may resolve many alternative uncommon illnesses.”
Lin can be curious about utilizing science journalism to make data extra accessible to most of the people. The Currier Home resident stated he turned obsessed with well being fairness after seeing his dad and mom, working-class immigrants from China, face linguistic and financial limitations in accessing care.
“Regardless that I used to be actually curious about fixing these illnesses and on the most direct stage by analysis, I noticed by observing my household’s experiences that it’s not simply discovering the science that’s vital but in addition getting the science to the people who find themselves impacted by it every single day,” Lin stated.
Lin was swimming within the Malkin Athletic Heart pool when the decision got here that he had been named a 2025 Marshall scholar.
“I used to be actually stunned,” stated Lin, who instantly phoned his mother to share the information. “I’m very, very grateful for the chance.”
Lin is co-president of the Harvard International Well being Institute’s Pupil Advisory Committee and an affiliate journal editor for The Crimson. He additionally works for the Harvard Ed Portal mentoring youth from Allston-Brighton.
Lin plans to spend his first yr as a Marshall Scholar finding out organic sciences on the Wellcome Sanger Institute for genomics analysis on the College of Cambridge, and his second finding out medical anthropology on the College of Oxford.
Laila Nasher
Historical past and Anthropology; secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, Rights
Nasher ’25 needs schooling to be a protected American proper for all college students. A primary-generation faculty pupil, Nasher stated that coming to Harvard after attending public faculty in her low-income neighborhood in Detroit fueled her need to make change.
“For me it was the query of, why not us?” stated Nasher. “Why did I and why did the folks in my neighborhood by no means have all these academic alternatives which might be and must be the norm?”
A joint concentrator in Historical past and Anthropology, with a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, Rights, Nasher discovered her ardour for historical past in her first yr in a course on the trendy Center East that “utterly opened” her thoughts to a subject that felt “a lot larger” than herself. A Truman Scholar and a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, Nasher focuses in her analysis on the historical past of feminism in South Yemen earlier than and after independence from the British, and after unification with North Yemen.
Nasher was in her Mather Home dorm room when she bought the decision that she had obtained a Marshall, and instantly celebrated the information together with her roommate.
“I used to be simply in shock and really, very grateful,” Nasher stated.
On campus, Nasher based the First-Era Low-Earnings Process Group, served on the board of Primus, and was co-director of variety and outreach for the Institute of Politics. Off-campus, she interned with Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and the Tawakkol Karman Basis in Istanbul, and arranged with the Michigan Schooling Justice Coalition.
She’ll spend her first yr as a Marshall Scholar finding out schooling on the College of Oxford, the place she plans to do a comparative examine on how major and Ok-12 schooling techniques within the U.Ok. and the U.S. form the experiences of individuals in low-income, city Yemeni communities.
