Ashley Fidler, a College of William and Mary senior and a Falls Church resident, was recently named a recipient of a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, one of 40 awarded in the United States.

The Gates Scholarship will allow Fidler to pursue an MPhil degree at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. After graduating from William and Mary with a double major in chemistry and biology, Fidler will begin study with Clemens Kaminski, professor of chemical physics and head of the Laser Analytics Group at Cambridge.

Fidler works in William and Mary Associate Professor of Biology Matthew Wawersik’s lab, where she’s finishing a senior honors thesis that deals with stem cell regulation in Drosophila, in addition to two chemistry labs.

Established in 2000 by a donation of $210 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the University of Cambridge, Gates Cambridge Scholarships are prestigious, highly competitive full-cost scholarships. They are awarded to outstanding applicants from countries outside the UK to pursue a full-time postgraduate degree in any subject available at the University of Cambridge.