UW-Madison graduate Joanna Lawrence was named one of the winners of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship out of 826 applicants, according to a university news release.
The highly regarded scholarship, based out of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, is granted to postgraduate candidates by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. According to the release, Lawrence’s research focused on “objects related to metalsmithing, weaving, flint knapping and other craft technologies from Late Bronze Age sites in southern England.”
Lawrence graduated from UW-Madison in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. For her senior honors thesis, she worked with two professors in the anthropology department to analyze trace element patterns in soil samples from a Bronze Age settlement in Scotland.
She then completed her master’s degree in archaeology at Cambridge. There, her research used a statistical approach to analyze how sexuality is shown in Bronze Age rock carvings in Sweden.
“My passion to create physical expressions of myself found satisfaction in uncovering the memories of selves expressed in the physical objects they left behind,” Lawrence wrote in her scholar biography.
In 2013, Lawrence was awarded the Beinecke Scholarship, which grants funds for those pursuing graduate studies in degrees of the arts, humanities or social sciences. She is currently seeking a doctorate in archaeology.
“Her enthusiasm for archaeology is contagious; she reminds us that studying the remnants of the past promotes tolerance and acceptance by helping us to understand the great cultural diversity throughout history,” said Julie Stubbs, director of the Office of Undergraduate Academic Awards.
Lawrence is the second UW-Madison graduate to have won a Gates Cambridge scholarship. The first was Rishi Wadhera, who was selected in 2008 for addressing health disparities in underprivileged communities.
