Recent UGA graduate Westin Amberge of Blairsville was awarded a 2006 Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Scholarship to support his attendance at Yale University School of Medicine this fall.
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation was created in 2000, and awards up to $50,000 a year for a maximum of six years and may vary between scholars.
Amberge is among 77 scholars selected nationwide from a pool of 1,100 applicants. For three years while at UGA, Amberge conducted human embryonic stem cell research that could lead to cell therapy treatments for vascular damage caused by heart disease and heart attacks.
Amberage founded the UGA chapter of the nonprofit Foundation for the International Medical Relief of Children and traveled abroad to do medical relief volunteer work in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Peru.