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Engineering futures with new undergraduate scholarships for women

Engineering undergraduate, Nicole, working on her robot as part of a summer internship at the Cambridge University Engineering Department

A new international scholarship offered at Girton College will partially fund one female student to undertake undergraduate studies in Engineering at the University of Cambridge.

Thanks to the generous support and vision of Girton alumna Gayathri Rajan (1985, Natural Sciences and Chemical Engineering) and Madhav Rajan, the Raghunathan Scholarship has been established to support an international female undergraduate student reading Engineering at Girton College.

Gayathri Rajan

"My father believed deeply in the power of education. He always encouraged me to take risks and challenge myself and pursue opportunities, such as applying for a scholarship to study at Cambridge. 

Endowing this scholarship at Girton in his name is my way of honouring his legacy and supporting young women in engineering."

Gayathri Rajan 
(1985, Natural Sciences and Chemical Engineering)

Girton has a long-standing history of nurturing trailblazing women engineers, including:

  • Hertha Ayrton (1876, Mathematics) was an electrical engineer, mathematician, physicist, and inventor whose extensive and wide-ranging contributions to science and engineering saw her honoured as the first woman elected to the Institution of Electrical Engineers (now the IET) and the first woman to receive the Royal Society Hughes Medal.
  • Peggy Hodges (1940, Natural Sciences) was a trailblazing engineer in the field of guided missile technology.
  • Professor Dame Ann Dowling (1970, Mathematics) was the first President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Cambridge University.
  • Professor Sarah Springman (1975, Engineering) is a world-renowned geotechnical engineer and a pioneer in the study of soil-structure interaction and of geological mass movements.
  • Professor Helen Atkinson (1978, Metallurgy and Material Sciences) was the first woman President of the UK Engineering Professors’ Council in its 50-year history and was named as one of the “Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering”. 

Dr Seb Falk, Admissions Tutor at Girton College, shared:

"Girton College was built on a commitment to expanding educational opportunity. This scholarship will play a crucial role in our efforts to honour Girton’s long tradition of supporting outstanding women scholars to reach their full potential in engineering."

Learn more about studying Engineering at Girton College
Hear from Nicole Hu, a current international undergraduate, as she shares what inspired her to read Engineering at Girton College, and how her studies have shaped her career aspirations.

How to apply for the Raghunathan Scholarship 
The Raghunathan Scholarship is open to female international undergraduates who hold an offer to study Engineering at Girton College. Awards are made on the basis of a candidate’s academic ability and financial need. 

All eligible undergraduate offer-holders are automatically considered for this award; there is no separate application. The value is £7,000 per year. The scholarship is renewed for each year of the undergraduate course, provided that the awardee demonstrates appropriate academic progress. 

The next scholarship will be available for the academic year 2026-27. 

If you have any questions, please contact admissions@girton.cam.ac.uk