Adam Gatch is the third student to win the Churchill Scholarship
For the third year in a row, a Clemson University Honors College student has won the prestigious Churchill Scholarship, widely regarded as the most competitive international award for postundergraduate researchers in science, mathematics and engineering.
Adam Gatch ’25, a biochemistry major from Charleston, South Carolina, is one of only 16 students nationwide to receive the scholarship, which funds a year of master’s study at the University of Cambridge.
Gatch’s achievement makes Clemson the only university whose students have been awarded a Churchill Scholarship in each of the last three years.
At Cambridge, Gatch will pursue a Master of Philosophy in chemistry under the guidance of Professor Tuomas Knowles at the Centre for Misfolding Diseases, which focuses on the abnormal behavior of proteins in the brain in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Gatch has already been exploring neurodegeneration through biophysics and bioengineering research. Since his first year on campus, Gatch has worked with physics and astronomy professor Feng Ding to run physics-based molecular dynamics simulations on a supercomputer. The simulations can be used to study abnormal interactions between proteins that are relevant to neurodegenerative disease.
Their work was supported by an application Gatch wrote — and won — for a $10,000 National Institute of Health Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Grant Supplement.
More recently, Gatch has been working with Gilpin MD ’82 Distinguished Professor Jeoung Soo Lee, using rodent models to study nanoparticle-based therapeutic strategies for treating traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries. He also spent the summer before his sophomore year at the Medical University of South Carolina researching how neuroimaging could be used to predict how patients with Parkinson’s disease might respond to a specific drug therapy.
Outside the lab, Gatch volunteers at the campus food pantry, serves on the College of Science Student Advisory Board and tutors at the Academic Success Center. He also works as an EMT, a role that has deepened his commitment to both research and patient care.
After completing his M.D. and Ph.D., Gatch aims to become a physician-scientist, starting with a residency in neurosurgery or neurocritical care. His long-term goal is to lead an interdisciplinary laboratory focused on neuroscience discoveries while practicing academic medicine.
Established in honor of Sir Winston Churchill, the Churchill Scholarship program advances science and technology on both sides of the Atlantic. Scholars are selected based on their research and academic achievement.
