Lyndie Mitchell Zollinger

Lyndie Mitchell Zollinger plans to double as a professor and researcher in biomechanics and engineering. Her 2020 award of the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship will help complete her plan. The award of a full-cost scholarship will enable her to pursue a postgraduate degree at the University of Cambridge. Cambridge offers approximately 25 of their 80 full-cost scholarships to U.S. students. Applicants are judged on four criteria—outstanding intellectual ability, reasons for choice of course, a commitment to improving the lives of others, and leadership potential.

She received the email with the scholarship offer while sitting in bed next to her sleeping husband.

”I woke him up screaming because I was really excited.”[1]

She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in May 2020. She recalls that while in the semester following her return from her mission in the Colorado Denver North mission, she “got this impression that I was at MIT to be the mechanical engineer God wanted me to be.” She felt impressed to apply for a study abroad scholarship. Apply for the Cambridge award and it felt “really right.”[2]

With engineering, Zollinger said she wants to “use what I’ve learned to help people and improve lives, especially through medical and biomechanics.” She wants to study medical challenges from a mechanical perspective to find potential treatment methods.

Zollinger served on MIT’s Latter-day Saint Student Association’s leadership team and started an interfaith student group to encourage religious discussions. She also worked with the MIT Women’s Technology Program, a program that invites high school girls to MIT and exposes them to the world of engineering.

Zollinger wants to start a similar program at Cambridge: “I think it is really important for girls to know that they are capable of doing these things.”[3]

Lyndie grew up in Utah and is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

• Lyndie’s website

External Source

3 Latter-day Saint women receive prestigious Gates Cambridge scholarship