The opportunity to earn her master's degree at Cambridge University has made zoology senior Sarah Lansing quite nervous.

Lansing is one of two MSU students nominated for the prestigious Churchill Scholarship, and although she applied for the scholarship on a whim, the Chicago native is anxious to plan her post-graduate life.

"The nomination was kind of last minute," Lansing said. "The Honors College had people back out and I was planning on taking a year off, so I had this free year and said 'Why not apply?'"

Her interest in animal behavior began young, when she volunteered in the Field Museum in Chicago in sixth grade.

Lansing also has researched at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archeology in Massachusetts, at an Inuit site in Labrador, Canada, and in Kenya, Africa.

The scholarship is perfect to help her along her path to earn her doctorate, Lansing said.

The other MSU candidate for the scholarship also studies zoology. Zoology senior Hilary Ogden applied to study in England to follow in her parent's footsteps - her father attended Oxford University.

Ogden, of Holland, has been working in MSU's Carcinogenesis Laboratory doing research on cancer genetics.

The scholarship provides for a year's tuition to study at Churchill College at Cambridge University in England.

Meghan Gilbert