UW Graduate Receives Prestigious Oxford Scholarship

Recently graduated University of Wyoming student Jasper Hunt, of Laramie, received a prestigious award for the incoming 2019-2020 class at the University of Oxford in Oxfordshire, England.

Hunt, who majored in psychology and philosophy, with minors in neuroscience and honors at UW this past spring, will receive the Clarendon Award to attend Oxford University, which is consistently ranked as among the top 10 universities worldwide. He has been accepted into a neuroscience doctoral program at the University of Oxford. His professional goal is to become a professor of neuroscience and to continue future research work.

Clarendon Award recipients are selected based on academic merit and potential to advance their fields during and after studying at Oxford. All incoming graduate students are considered for the Clarendon Award, making it a highly competitive process.

“Receiving the Clarendon Award is a huge honor. Hearing the news was such a surprise, as it's one of those things that seems like it would always happen to someone else,” Hunt says. “This scholarship will pay the overseas component of my tuition and fees at Oxford, allowing me to focus on performing my best in classes and research.”

Of the 6,000 students in graduate study at Oxford this fall, only 130 receive the award -- or about 2 percent of the student population. Formed in 2000 to assist the best graduate students at the University of Oxford, the Clarendon Fund has enabled more than 1,600 students to achieve individual academic goals. Clarendon’s core funding comes from Oxford University Press. The resources dedicated to it have increased dramatically since its inception.

Hunt says his UW classes and his instructors helped prepare him for a career in research.

“The faculty at UW are not only committed to research excellence, but they're so accessible to their students. This made it easy to get to know my professors and become involved with research as an undergraduate,” he says. “The high-quality research experiences I've had here at UW made the biggest difference, letting me show myself -- and Oxford -- that I was ready for the rigor of a Ph.D. program.”

Hunt was among 11 students nominated for the Rosemarie Martha Spitaleri and Tobin Memorial Award, which recognizes the most outstanding UW graduates from the 2018-19 undergraduate class. His family moved from Michigan to Indiana to New Hampshire for his father’s work as an urban planner before settling in Laramie, where the younger Hunt attended Laramie Junior High School and Laramie High School.