UChicago, Northwestern students receive prestigious Marshall scholarship

Two students from the University of Chicago and one from Northwestern University are among the 2026 Marshall scholars, the British government announced.

Logan Hanssler, a Buffalo Grove native and senior at the University of Chicago, remembered he was on a break, chatting with a friend about the Marshall Scholarship, when he got a call from a number he didn’t recognize.

“I know to expect a strange call, and I just had a feeling,” Hanssler said. “I picked up, and it was the chair of the committee saying that I got the scholarship, and I just like, fell to my knees.”

Hanssler, along with Elijah Jenkins of the University of Chicago and Ethan Barnes of Northwestern University, are among the 43 students who have been selected as Marshall scholars this year. The Marshall scholars were publicly announced Tuesday.

The prestigious scholarship awards each recipient a fully funded graduate-level education in almost any subject at universities across the United Kingdom.

The scholarship, established in 1953, was named in honor of George C. Marshall, architect of the Marshall Plan that provided American aid for Western Europe to rebuild after WWII.

Awarded annually to students with exceptional academic achievements, leadership qualities and potential to strengthen U.S.-UK relations, the program has funded more than 2,300 students since its inception. This year, there were more than 1,000 applicants to the program.

Hanssler, who studies molecular engineering and astrophysics, has long been fascinated by space technology, he said.

Throughout his time in college, he has been learning about and working on projects on space-to-ground laser communication, a novel way a spacecraft can send information back to Earth that is more powerful and efficient than using radio frequency.

Those include building a laser communication satellite, a project he co-founded as a first-year student.

“That project opened my eyes to a lot of different gaps that exist in space to ground laser communication, and that is exactly what I ended up framing my Marshall Scholarship experience around,” Hanssler said.

With the scholarship, Hanssler will pursue a master’s degree in optics and photonics at Imperial College London and a master’s program in physics at Durham University with a pair of professors working on telescope technology for laser communication.

He hopes these degrees will be a steppingstone to a doctorate in aerospace engineering, and eventually, a researcher job at NASA, while promoting partnerships in space technology between the U.S. and the U.K.

Jenkins, of Chandler, Arizona, is believed to be the first CHamoru — the indigenous people of the islands that include Guam — to become a Marshall scholar.

“You see the United States, the U.K. and a lot of actors are already increasing their engagement in the Pacific right now,” Jenkins said. “I think it’s truly a testament of the moment of time, not only politically, but me being able to bring my community into this political space.”

His heritage has driven the senior studying law, letters and society and race diaspora toward researching and working — including as an intern with the U.S. State Department — on issues around diplomacy, law and politics in the Pacific.

Jenkins plans to pursue a master’s degree in global and imperial history at Oxford University, followed by a master’s program in development studies at Cambridge University. He said those two programs are perfect for him to merge his academic and policymaking interests.

Northwestern’s Barnes, from Washington, D.C., has been researching and working on criminal justice issues for years — including on police oversight and probation and parole reform. His work with Illinois lawmakers led to a 2023 law that overhauled the state’s mandatory supervised release to reduce recidivism due to technical violations of parole conditions.

“Growing up and watching the news and seeing a lot of misconduct and degradation of trust between those in the community and the police officers, I think that really motivated me to see what I could do to make that relationship better and do what I could to contribute to the fixing of dysfunctionality within the criminal justice system,” Barnes said.

Barnes said he hasn’t decided on which school or program to attend in the U.K., but he hopes to study law and criminology. He said he thinks a new perspective, from comparing the British criminal justice system to that of the U.S., would challenge him and make him a better policy advocate.

The senior in political science was also named a Truman scholar earlier this year, and Barnes said he hopes to become a federal prosecutor after attending law school, so he can implement criminal justice reforms and focus on reducing crimes in his community.

As for their advice for future applicants to the Marshall Scholarship, the three reached for similar answers — finding a true passion, working toward that passion through projects both in and outside school, and making a plan for how to take advantage of the scholarship opportunity.

“You had to start early to create that trajectory throughout your college career, and that starts freshman year of picking classes and seeing what professors you like,” Jenkins said. “The biggest thing is just figure out what is your interest and how can you deepen that within your institution, but also outside your school.”