News Article Release
Naval Academy Midshipman One of 40 U.S. Gates Cambridge Scholars
Mar 01, 2012
By Jessica Clark
A Naval Academy midshipman is one of 40 U.S. students selected Feb. 17 as 2012 Gates Cambridge Scholars sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Midshipman 1st Class Thomas Paul is the 10th student from the Naval Academy to be awarded the Gates Cambridge Scholarship which will enable him to pursue a year of graduate studies at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
“It’s a great honor,” said Paul. “There are hundreds of thousands of people who apply, and to even to get an interview and get selected as a finalist was a great honor.”
Paul, 21, of Norfolk, Va., is a mathematics honors major and Chinese minor. He plans to study economics at Cambridge and hopes to pursue a further year of graduate study in political economy.
“I’ve been developing this interest in the U.S.-China relationship. It.s a multifaceted relationship on all sorts of levels - military, economic, political, the whole thing,” said Paul.
While he feels he has a good understanding of the military side of U.S. relations with China, he wants to gain a better appreciation of other aspects.
“I’d like to have a positive impact on that relationship, so economics seemed like the logical next step,” he said.
“I think naval officers are supposed to wear many hats,” he said. “In some cases, junior officers represent the United States and the U.S. Navy to foreign civilians or foreign militaries. A person who really understands the nuances of a culture can not only have a good impact themselves but also bring their wardroom and their crew along with them and maybe help teach them something along the way.”
As one of seven senior Trident Scholars, he is doing independent research on “The Enumerative Geometry of Hyperplane Arrangements,” which addresses the number of ways you can arrange lines given certain geometric conditions.
“If you want the lines to intersect a certain way, you can count how many ways you can do that,” said Paul.
Though his research is focused on mathematical theory, the project has practical applications in such areas as robotics, economics, political theory and biology, Paul said.
Paul was also the recipient of the U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship in fall 2010 and spent eight weeks in a cultural and language immersion program in China during the summer of 2011.
Paul serves as the coxswain on the academy’s lightweight crew team and is a member of the Math Club. He will be commissioned in May as a Navy surface nuclear officer.
The Gates Cambridge Scholarship program was established in 2000 and funded by a $210 million donation to the University of Cambridge by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It enables academically outstanding students from outside the United Kingdom who have a strong interest in social leadership and responsibility to pursue graduate study at Cambridge. For more information about Gates Scholars, visit www.gatesscholar.org/.
