News Release

Local angles: Brighton, Mich.; Chicago;
Northbrook, Ill.; Cambridge, England

Photo: To download photo, see end of story.

Two Carolina graduates
win Luce Scholarships

CHAPEL HILL — Nicholas Love and David Chapman, recent graduates of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have been awarded 2006 Luce Scholarships to live and learn in Asia – two of 18 scholarships awarded nationwide.

UNC ranks second only to Harvard in producing Luce Scholars. Including Chapman and Love, 26 UNC students and alumni have won the Luce since the program began in 1974. Harvard has had 27 Luce Scholars.

Love graduated from UNC in 2005 with a bachelor of arts degree in biology; Chapman, in 2003, with a bachelor of arts degree in dramatic art.

The Henry Luce Foundation provides the scholarships for a year’s internship in Asia, with the goal of acquainting future American leaders with Asian colleagues in their fields. Candidates must have no prior experience with Asia. Winners are chosen for outstanding academic achievement and leadership ability. This year, 60 colleges and universities nationwide nominated 118 candidates for the Luce. The scholars will find out their specific assignments by June and will spend part of the summer in language study to prepare for their time in Asia.

Love, the son of Christine and Robert Love of Brighton, Mich., is pursuing a master’s degree in zoology at the University of Cambridge in England through a Churchill Scholarship, another distinguished award. He plans to focus on a career in stem cell research.

Chapman, the son of Howard S. Chapman and Diane L. Nelson of Northbrook, Ill., is the assistant director of the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. He also was a 2003 Fulbright Scholar in Hungary.

"UNC students have competed for the Luce Scholarship with amazing success," said Dr. George Lensing, director of the UNC Office of Distinguished Scholarships. "To have two recipients this year is a singular tribute to Nicholas Love and David Chapman.

"Nicholas is already conducting original research in internal regenerative tissues in mammals in the attempt to learn more about adult stem cells," Lensing said.

"David is a theatrical prodigy. He has written, performed, directed and produced plays, both as an undergraduate here and in the years since his graduation. Both are already forces of influence within their respective spheres of interest, and it is noteworthy that both discovered and developed these interests intensively while studying as undergraduates at Carolina."

Love hopes to pursue his interest in tissue regeneration research while in Asia and to have a future career as a scientist and scholar.

"Scientists in Asia are expanding our knowledge of regeneration," Love wrote in his Luce application. "As a graduate student, it will be invaluable for me to stand on the edge of this new scientific horizon. But a year in Asia will bring much more: a fascinating culture, the challenge of a new language, exposure to different ways of thinking. I cannot help but imagine what I will discover."

During his senior year at UNC, Love began to concentrate on a specific aspect of vascular biology: the way blood vessels can help regenerate injured tissue. Vascular research is crucial in understanding cancer, because tumors must recruit blood vessels to stay alive and grow.

Love already has won two other distinguished competitive scholarships. He received the Churchill Scholarship last year, on which he now studies at Cambridge with Dr. Enrique Amaya. Amaya pioneered the use of the lab-adapted frog, Xenopus tropicalis, for use in tissue regeneration.

In 2004, Love’s scientific curiosity landed him a Goldwater Scholarship, given to undergraduates who demonstrate a commitment to careers in mathematics, the sciences or engineering.

Love was a dean’s list student at UNC and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. An honors student, he received the department of biology’s I.R. Hagadorn Award for the outstanding junior in that discipline. He also worked as a biology teaching assistant.

Although passionate about science, Love has a variety of interests. He plays on Cambridge’s varsity basketball team and played on the junior varsity team at Carolina. While at UNC, he studied abroad at the University of Wollongong in Australia, took classical guitar lessons and volunteered for the organizations Hunger Lunch, Ronald McDonald House and Habitat for Humanity.

Chapman wrote in his Luce application that he would like to develop lasting artistic collaborations with international artists and learn more about theater in Asia. His ultimate goal is to establish a live arts center that focuses on international exchanges and residencies.

Chapman is developing his third production as assistant director of the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.

"It is well known that theatre in the United States is under-funded, under-attended and often over-priced, reinforcing its reputation as an upper-class diversion," Chapman wrote. "Nothing could be further from theatre’s actual mission in the world.

"In Asia, there are still communities in which theatre is closer to ritual than commerce, in which the citizens’ needs outweigh market viability. … " he wrote. "For me to make the impact on American theatre I believe I can make, I know I must become a global theatre citizen."

In 2004, Chapman and two close friends founded an independent theater company. They produced a world premiere play that was shown at the New York International Fringe Festival.

During his junior year at UNC, Chapman was elected producer of Lab! Theatre, the oldest student theater company at UNC, after having served as director, actor, designer and playwright. In 2002, he received a Burch Fellowship from UNC to perform his original one-man play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.

Chapman was inducted into the UNC honor societies Order of the Golden Fleece and Order of the Grail-Valkyries and was active in a number of interests, including North Carolina Hillel, the Great Decisions lecture series and the UNC Dance Marathon.

Chapman’s 2003 Fulbright Scholarship took him to Hungary, where he was a guest artist at Budapest’s Vígszínház Theatre under the direction of László Marton, a former visiting professor at UNC. A selection of Chapman’s dramatic writing was published by the Hungarian Fulbright Commission.

Raymond B. Farrow III, executive director of The Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC and a former Luce Scholar, chairs UNC’s Luce nominating committee.

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Photo URLs: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/students/love_nick_05.JPG
http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/students/chapman_david 

Note: Chapman can be reached at (847) 436-5221) or davidfchapman@gmail.com; Love, in Cambridge, England, at 011-44-7849851142, or nicholas.love@gmail.com 

Distinguished scholarships contacts: Dr. George Lensing, (919) 962-4053, lensing@email.unc.edu; Raymond B. Farrow III, (919) 843-7553, raymond.farrow@unc.edu 
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589