28-year-old University of Montana senior Paul Straw was still at the airport in San Francisco when he got the call. He’d just completed his final interview for the Marshall scholarship, and the judges wasted no time breaking the good news — he was one of fewer than 50 American students to win this year’s award.
“I mean — just weightless,” Straw told MTPR in an interview, describing his feeling when he got the call. “I was just, like, walking on clouds for the next few days.”
The Marshall Scholarship provides a full ride to a school of the winner’s choice in the United Kingdom. The award is the latest feather in the integrative physiology student’s hat — and a big step forward on a path he never thought he’d walk.
Straw is a Marine Corps veteran from Colorado. He said he loved working out and surfing during his station in southern California.
“I did well enough in school to get by, but all I wanted to do was be a Marine,” Straw said.
That changed dramatically when Straw was diagnosed with an arthritic autoimmune disease. He said the illness left him in unbearable pain until doctors found the right mix of medications to manage his symptoms.
Straw decided to shift his focus to studying genetic conditions like his.
“I just decided, like, ‘At least I still have a brain,’” Straw said. “Just lean into the things I can impact.”
That work led him to the University of Montana, and will now send him to the University of Edinburgh in the fall to study human complex trait genetics.
Straw is UM’s fifth Marshall scholar. Montana State University has produced two winners.
