Senior Wins Luce Fellowship

The Henry Luce Foundation awarded a fellowship for a year of study in Thailand to Daniel P. Mason '98 last Wednesday. Mason was one of 17 students from colleges around the nation to be named Luce scholars.

The fellowships provide stipends and allowances for a year of study and travel in Asia. Winners are also placed with host institutions which aid them in pursuing their own fields of interest.

To be eligible, students must have no prior experience traveling in, living in or studying Asia.

"The goal of the Luce Scholars program is to create greater understanding of the cultures of Asia among young men and women who will assume leading roles in American society," said Henry Luce III, chair and CEO of the foundation.

Mason plans to spend next year researching tropical medicine in Thailand. He will be based at Mahidol University in Bangkok, and will do fieldwork on drug-resistant strains of malaria in the Ratchaburi province.

"Given that the scholarship is focused on Asian-American appreciation and study, it's giving people a chance to go who otherwise wouldn't have had that chance," Mason said.

Mason, a biology concentrator, wrote his senior thesis on computer modelling of malaria infection.

"I've been very interested in tropical medicine for a while," said Mason, a Lowell House resident who is from Palo Alto, Calif. "I spent a semester in Ecuador working with a mobile surgery unit, and we did a lot of public health projects."

The fellowships have been awarded for the past 24 years, and this year 67 colleges submitted nominations to the program. The nominees were required to complete a series of interviews about their prospective projects before the foundation awarded the scholarships.

"They told me I won on my birthday. I was surprised and very happy," said Mason, who will leave in September to begin his malaria research.

The Henry Luce Foundation supports a number of other programs aside from the fellowships in Asia, including projects in American art, theology and women in science. The foundation was established in memory of Henry R. Luce, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time, Inc.