Bill De La Rosa, Bowdoin MMUF '16, Wins Marshall Scholarship

MMUF fellow Bill De La Rosa, who graduated from Bowdoin College this past spring, has been awarded the Marshall Scholarship. The Marshall, which funds graduate study in the United Kingdom for about 40 American students each year, will support Bill's graduate work at Oxford University, where he has been admitted to a master's program in migration studies.

Bill, who is the son of Mexican immigrants and whose mother was forced to separate from his family and return to Mexico after overstaying a visa in 2009, will make the issue of border security his academic focus during his one-year master's program. Beyond its personal implications, he sees the establishment of humane immigration and migration policies as a critical global issue, particularly in the wake of the UK's Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump in the U.S.

Bill's Marshall win is only the latest in a long string of similar honors. He previously received the Gates Millennium, Michael and Susan Dell, and Truman scholarships, and was named Hispanic Scholar of the Year for 2016 by the Hispanic Scholarship Fund. After completing his master's program, he plans to pursue a PhD in international development. We're delighted by Bill's accumulating honors, and wish him the very best as he prepares for his graduate studies.