East Lansing, Mich. – Andrew McDonald, an Honors College senior majoring in Computer Science in the College of Engineering; and Advanced Mathematics, and Statistics in the College of Natural Science has been named a Gates Cambridge Scholar.
Andrew is the 6th Gates Cambridge Scholar from Michigan State University.
Andrew was awarded the Alumni Distinguished Scholarship and a Professorial Assistantship from the Honors College. As a member of the D-CYPHER Lab, he developed machine learning-based algorithms to control and coordinate multi-robot systems used in environmental sensing applications, receiving the Goldwater Scholarship in 2021 in recognition of his contributions. Andrew currently serves as a research assistant to Professor Pang-Ning Tan in the DMiner Research Lab and is a lead mentor for computer science outreach programs including Spartan Girls Who Code and Technovation. Andrew is also a Marshall Scholar and was a finalist for the Rhodes Scholarship.
Andrew was raised in Midland, Michigan, and Hudson, Ohio and graduated from Hudson High School.
At the University of Cambridge Andrew plans to pursue a joint MRes + PhD in AI for the Study of Environmental Risks (AI4ER). The Marshall Scholarship will fund his MRes degree, and the Gates Cambridge Scholarship will fund his PhD degree.
“Having spent my academic coming-of-age studying the scientific principles of computational, mathematical, and statistical modeling, with a focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence, I now hope to leverage deep learning to advance research in earth and climate science. Simultaneously, I hope to advance research in deep learning by developing methods which address the challenges posed by modeling high-dimensional spatiotemporal data. As a PhD student within the AI for the Study of Environmental Risks Centre for Doctoral Training at Cambridge and a member of the Gates Cambridge Community, I look forward to collaborating with a diverse team of bright-minded individuals towards these ends,” Andrew said.
The National and International Fellowships and Scholarships (NIFS) Office, administered by the Honors College, is dedicated to supporting undergraduate and graduate students pursuing major national and international opportunities by providing information and direct support throughout the competitive application processes.
The Gates Cambridge Scholarship was established in 2000 and provides funding for graduate study at the University of Cambridge in the UK.
Contact:
Christopher P. Long, PhD,
MSU Foundation Professor,
Dean of the MSU Honors College,
Dean of the College of Arts and Letters
517-355-2326