3 Harvard College Seniors Named 2025 Marshall Scholars

Updated December 16, 2024, at 11:36 p.m.

Three Harvard College seniors — Laila A. Nasher ’25, Ryan H. Doan-Nguyen ’25, and John Lin ’25 — were named Marshall Scholars on Monday, per a British consulate press release.

A total of 36 students were selected from a pool of 983 applicants as recipients of the 2025 Marshall Scholarships. Stanford University had the greatest number of awardees with five Marshall recipients, followed by Duke University and Harvard, which each received three.

Winners came from 25 universities across 16 U.S. states.

The Marshall Scholarship, which was established in 1953 as a memorial to former U.S. Secretary of State General George C. Marshall, awards American students with up to three years of graduate study at any university in the United Kingdom. Previous Marshall scholarship recipients include Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Harvard Medical School professor Dan H. Barouch ’93.

Lin, a Human Development and Regenerative Biology Concentrator in Currier House, is currently an undergraduate researcher at the Greka Lab at the Broad Institute of MIT studying rare diseases and the regulation of proteins.

Previously, Lin — a former Crimson Magazine editor — has also been involved with the Amgen Scholars Program, where he conducted research on a rare kidney disease.

Lin plans to spend a year studying genomics and biological sciences at Cambridge University, then a second year studying medical anthropology at Oxford University. He said he hoped his interdisciplinary plan of study would help him understand the “biological and social challenges” faced by rare disease patients.

“It gives me a chance to finally bridge these different domains together to solve one problem,” Lin said.

“What I ultimately want to do is take these interdisciplinary approaches to address different aspects of the patient experience, so that all patients can both access accessible treatments and live dignified lives,” he added.

Lin hopes to continue his studies with an M.D.-Ph.D. and “pursue a career as a physician scientist.”

He found out he had won a Marshall Scholarship after missing two calls from the British Consulate while swimming laps at the Malkin Athletic Center. When he finally heard the news, he immediately called his parents.

“I was just very surprised and very grateful for the opportunity to go to the U.K. and pursue this dream,” Lin said.

Doan-Nguyen, a Mather House resident concentrating in History and Literature and Government, interned at the Associated Press last summer. Doan-Nguyen is a former Crimson News and Multimedia editor, and his magazine feature on the history of napalm at Harvard received the Associated Collegiate Press’s 2023 Story of the Year Award.

Doan-Nguyen — whose research primarily focuses on Southeast Asian representation and history — said he aims to work as a historian “researching places and people that have not had the limelight”.

“Southeast Asian voices are not as valued or considered as valuable in our institutions of knowledge, in policy making decisions, and in public media,” Doan-Nguyen said. “And I’m hoping to kind of redress that by both studying this academically as a historian and as a researcher.”

Doan-Nguyen described his acceptance of the Marshall award as a “promise.”

“It’s a commitment to use my life, the entirety of my life, to leave the world at least an inch better,” said Doan-Nguyen.

Nasher, who lives in Mather House and concentrates in History and Anthropology, was previously named as a 2024 Truman Scholar. Nasher, who founded Harvard’s First-Generation Low-Income Task Group, has led efforts to expand programming for FGLI students at Harvard. She also served as director of diversity and outreach for the Institute of Politics.

Nasher said her interests in education and history drive her future goals to “enshrine education as a recognized civil right.”

“I came to Harvard from an environment where I really couldn’t have access to schooling, period,” said Nasher.

Nasher first traveled to the U.K. to do archival research and conduct oral history interviews for her senior thesis on history of feminism and nationalism in South Yemen from the 1940s to the 1990s.

She said she was proud to be “the first Yemeni to be selected for this honor.”

“Marshall is not only an award, but a very deep responsibility in making sure that I continue to do everything in my power to take the resources that I get from these very prestigious institutions,” Nasher said, “and bring them back to the communities that need the most.”

—Staff writer Neeraja S. Kumar can be reached at neeraja.kumar@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @neerajasrikumar.

Correction: December 17, 2024

A previous version of this article referred to Ryan H. Doan-Nguyen ’25 by the incorrect surname on some references.