Penn senior and a 2018 graduate receive Marshall Scholarship

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University of Pennsylvania senior Christina Steele and 2018 graduate Erin Hartman have been named Marshall Scholars. Established by the British government, the Marshall Scholarship funds up to three years of study for a graduate degree in any field at an institution in the United Kingdom.

They are among 46 Marshall Scholars for 2020 chosen from more than 1,000 applicants. The scholarship, meant to strengthen U.S.-U.K. relations, is offered to as many as 50 Americans each year. 

Erin Hartman, from Medford, New Jersey, graduated magna cum laude from the School of Nursing in 2018. She is currently a registered nurse in the Emergency Department at New York Presbyterian Hospital, where she also works as a certified sexual assault forensic examiner in the Victim Intervention Program. She plans to pursue a master of laws degree in international human rights and practice at the University of York, followed by an master’s degree in gender, peace, and security at the London School of Economics. Her passion is in empowering women, and her ambition is to help eradicate violence against women around the world. 

Hartman worked as a research assistant at Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics for two years. She spent her summers and time outside of campus working on women's health issues, specifically sexual violence. She interned for the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in the health policy office and at the World Health Organization's headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on the Violence Against Women team. 

At Penn, she pursued an interdisciplinary course of study that included graduate courses on ethical issues in reproductive health, social science research methods, and global health. She focused on the ability of nurses to translate their experiences with individual patients into systemic change through policy. Hartman was an Ortner Center for Violence and Abuse Student Fellow, a Wharton Public Policy Research Scholar, and an International Human Rights Scholar through Penn Law. She also was involved with the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education and the pre-professional health care fraternity Alpha Iota Gamma.

Christina Steele, from Valley Stream, New York, is majoring in psychology with minors in religious studies and biological basis of behavior in the School of Arts and Sciences. She will pursue a doctorate in social psychology at the University of Edinburgh with a goal of developing evidence-based interventions that target interpersonal conflict and foster positive relationships in society.

Steele is a 2019 Beinecke Scholar and a recipient of the George Weiss Challenge Scholarship and the Gillian Meltzer Miniter Scholarship. She has participated in National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates programs for two years: on the effects of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders on romantic relationships in 2019, and on adversity and sociopolitical violence among Ukrainian civilians and military personnel in 2018.

At Penn, Steele is a Benjamin Franklin Scholar and has been awarded the Hassenfeld Foundation Social Impact Research Grant and the College Alumni Society Research Grant through Penn’s Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships (CURF). She has been a research assistant in the Brannon Laboratory, the Jenkins Laboratory, and the Emotion, Development, Environment and Neurogenetics Laboratory. Her research has ranged from child numerical cognition to implicit biases  to social decision making to callous-unemotional traits in children. 

She is a CURF Research Peer Advisor, and a College of Arts and Sciences Peer Advisor in the Psychology Department. She tutors neuroscience, has helped develop a graduate statistics course, and has twice served as a teaching assistant in cognitive science. She also teaches introductory neuroscience to high school students in West Philadelphia. 

Steele enjoys playing badminton and playing music. She has performed with the Penn Band, as well as the Music Department’s Penn Wind Ensemble, and Penn Flutes Ensemble. 

Steele and Hartman applied for the Marshall Scholarship with assistance from the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. Penn has had 17 Marshall Scholars since the scholarship’s inception in 1953. 

For a full list of the 2020 Marshall Scholars or for more information, go to marshallscholarship.org. 

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