The Winston Churchill Foundation awards 15 annual scholarships supporting a year of graduate study at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Recipients are graduating seniors or recent college graduates who have demonstrated exceptional academic talent, outstanding personal qualities, and the capacity to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the sciences, engineering or mathematics. This year, for the first time, 2 of the 15 scholarships were awarded to students of The Ohio State University: Henry Tran (mathematics and chemistry) and Alexis Crockett (neuroscience and psychology). The application pool comprised 91 nominees from 61 institutions.

During his time at Ohio State, Henry Tran conducted theoretical mathematics research on knots and graphs with Dr. Sergei Chmutov. He then went on to conduct research on Jahn-Teller distortions of the NO3 molecule with Ohio Eminent Scholar Dr. Terry Miller, which he presented at multiple international symposia. Tran previously received a number of other scholarships and awards, including a Goldwater Scholarship and a Goldstein Memorial Mathematics Scholarship.

Tran plans to pursue an MPhil in scientific computing at Cambridge. His long-term career goals are to obtain a PhD in theoretical chemistry and conduct research on developing computational methods to understand the electronic structure of important molecules. Additional information about Henry Tran and Alexis Crockett can be found in the OSU College of Arts & Sciences announcement about the 2016 Churchill Scholars.