News Article Release

Midshipman Selected For 2012 Truman Scholarship

April 5, 2012

From Naval Academy Public Affairs

Naval Academy Midshipman 2nd Class Phoebe Kotlikoff is one of 54 students selected by the Truman Foundation as 2012 Truman Scholars.

Kotlikoff, of Ithaca, N.Y., is the academy’s 20th Truman Scholar. She is majoring in quantitative economics with a minor in Spanish and was also recently selected to enter the submarine community after graduation.

“I am honored and very excited about the opportunity to join a great group of people with a lot of history,” she said.

The Truman Foundation, dedicated to former President Harry S. Truman, finds and recognizes college juniors with exceptional leadership potential and intellectual ability who are committed to careers in public service. Scholars are required to work in public service for three of the seven years following completion of a Foundation-funded graduate degree program.

The scholarships provide up to $30,000 for graduate school. Kotlikoff is hoping to attend graduate school the Woodrow Wilson School or the Kennedy School immediately after graduating from the academy and plans to pursue a master’s degree in public policy.

“I chose public policy because I think it is a widely applicable degree,” she said. “It will give me quantitative and qualitative ways to assess policy, understand complex problems, and develop innovative solutions.”

Kotlikoff stands in the top one percent of her class, is a member of Omicron Delta Epsilon International Economics Honors Society, plays lock on the academy’s nationally ranked Woman’s Rugby Team and volunteers with Sister to Sister, a program she founded which brings together young women from public schools in the Annapolis area with female midshipmen role models.

She has held a variety of midshipman leadership posts, including company training corporal, company academic sergeant, company platoon sergeant, and regimental sports boss.