University of Georgia senior Finn Walsh will build on her studies in infectious disease next fall as UGA’s newest Marshall Scholar. The scholarship is among the most selective graduate awards for Americans.
This year, 43 students were named Marshall Scholars, and nearly a third are from public or state universities. UGA was the only institution in Georgia to have a recipient.
Walsh, an Honors student from Atlanta, will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in genetics and a minor in Spanish through the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. She has conducted undergraduate research through the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities, with the majority of her work in the Odum School of Ecology.
Up to 50 students are selected each year for the Marshall Scholarship, which is designed to strengthen the enduring relationship between the British and American peoples, their governments and their institutions. Funded principally by the British government, the scholarship allows up to three years of fully funded graduate study at any university in the United Kingdom.
“As the University of Georgia’s newest Marshall Scholar, Finn is joining a prestigious group of students who have made significant contributions to their respective fields,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “I am very proud of her hard work to this point, and I look forward to all she will accomplish during her time in graduate school and beyond.”
With the addition of Walsh, UGA has had 10 Marshall Scholars since the scholarship’s inaugural class in 1954.
“Finn has devoted her undergraduate years to studying infectious diseases across a variety of ecosystems, and we are extremely proud that her hard work has resulted in a Marshall Scholarship,” said Meg Amstutz, dean of the Morehead Honors College. “We at the Honors College are particularly grateful to the faculty and staff who have supported her throughout her time at UGA.”
Walsh is interested in how the connections among humans, animals and ecosystems impact the health of all three. She is currently conducting research on parasite and pathogen movement between mammals on land and those in the water. As a Marshall Scholar, she plans to pursue two master’s degrees, the first in medical anthropology through the University of Edinburgh and the second in one health through a program jointly offered by the Royal Veterinary College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
After her time in the U.K., Walsh will pursue an M.D.-Ph.D. in the U.S. She plans to work in infectious disease control, specializing in vector-borne diseases.
“Infectious diseases simultaneously fascinate and terrify me,” Walsh said. “They have shaped our health, our history and even our genome. I’ve grown to appreciate the interconnected nature of the health of different species and its relevance to emerging diseases. In pursuing a career as a physician-scientist, I hope to combine medical knowledge of infectious diseases and a broader understanding of prevention and control strategies.
“I am confident that the experiences I will have and relationships I will develop as a Marshall Scholar will form the cornerstone of the rest of my career,” she said.
Walsh conducts research with Andrew Park, a professor with a joint appointment in the Odum School of Ecology and College of Veterinary Medicine, studying parasite and pathogen transmission between terrestrial and marine mammals. She met Park in the fall of her freshman year while attending a seminar on the history of epidemics. What he spoke on fascinated her, and soon thereafter, Walsh joined his lab group.
Walsh has traveled and researched extensively during her time at UGA. This past May, she studied different vector species of the Southeast through a UGA domestic field study program. Later that summer, she was a visiting student researcher at the University of Oxford, studying cell division in the Department of Biochemistry.
In summer 2024, she processed labs alongside veterinary students at Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University in India, gaining skills and insights into infectious disease management in individual animals. She then spent the fall 2024 semester at Oxford as an associate member of Keble College through the UGA at Oxford program. She started summer 2023 in San José, Costa Rica, conducting conservation genetics at the BIOMOL Lab, and ended it at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, curating over 200 seed specimens as a seed bank volunteer lab assistant. Over the 2023 winter break, she shadowed hospital providers and nonprofit community health workers in Cape Town, South Africa.
In Athens, Walsh is currently a peer learning assistant in biochemistry, president of the Medical Reserve Corps Students at UGA, co-leader of the Medicine in Literature Book Club, college volunteer at Piedmont Athens Regional Health Center and aerial arts student at Canopy Studio. Previously, she was involved with UGA’s Women in Science and volunteered with Red Cross and IMPACT at UGA.
Walsh is a Crane Leadership Scholar through the Morehead Honors College and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Delta Pi.
UGA’s Major Scholarships Office, housed in the Morehead Honors College, works closely with all students across campus as they apply for national and international high-level scholarships. For more information, contact Jessica Hunt at jhunt@uga.edu.