Two Cornell University students are among 40 students nationwide who have been awarded prestigious 1999 Marshall Scholarships for study in the United Kingdom.

This year's recipients from Cornell are David Roberts, of Huntsville, Ala., a senior in the College of Engineering who also is working toward a graduate degree in engineering, and Daun DeFrance, of Spring, Texas, a graduate student in structural engineering.

Competition for Marshall Scholarships is extremely rigorous, and more than 800 candidates in the United States are interviewed each year for the exclusive awards. Recipients earn two to three years of study toward a degree at a university in the United Kingdom.

David Roberts will graduate next June with both a bachelor of science degree in physics -- with a minor in astronomy -- and a master of engineering degree in environmental geophysics, the latter the result of his undergraduate research.

He plans to attend the University of Oxford and pursue the degrees of master of philosophy and doctor of philosophy in applied mathematics. Since the British doctor of philosophy degree requires only three years of study, he then plans to return to the United States to obtain a Ph.D.

Research has been the focus of Roberts' undergraduate career.

"In high school, I didn't like science too much," he said. "Where I developed my interest in science and my passion for physics was in research, much more than in classes."

Roberts has worked with Professor Richard Lovelace in applied and engineering physics and Donald Turcotte, the M.zAM.Upson Professor of Engineering in the Department of Geological Sciences. He has published papers on the resurfacing of Venus and the dynamics of wars, and he will be publishing a paper on ionizing background radiation and gravitational lensing. His master's thesis will be based on other work with Turcotte.

Roberts also has spent his summers on research jobs, working with NASA in Huntsville, Ala., at the Astronomy Centre of the University of Sussex in England, the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy at the University of Colorado, and the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford.

In all of these positions, his role has been to apply mathematical analysis to real-world problems, including the frequency and distribution of forest fires, the geological evolution of the planet Venus and the behavior of gravitational lenses.

"I like to see some results of research in the real world," he said. "If I can't explain my research to a non-scientist, it doesn't seem relevant."

Roberts also has been involved in the real world outside the classroom. He is the president of the Cornell Society of Physics Students and a member of a group of students who have collaborated nationwide to create the Journal of Young Investigators, an online publication that will publish research by undergraduates. He will be editor of the physics section of the journal until he graduates. He also is a member of the Cornell engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi.

Off campus he has worked as a volunteer at Loaves and Fishes, an Ithaca soup kitchen, and as a mentor to a 13-year-old boy through the Ithaca Youth Bureau's One-to-One program. He is an active racquetball player and hiker and is studying the classical guitar.

Roberts received a 1998 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, a J. Schoellkopf Trembley Scholarship and was an All-American Scholar and a Cornell Tradition fellow. He also was a Rhodes Scholarship semifinalist.

"I'm honored, of course," Roberts said of the Marshall Scholarship. "I don't think anybody really expects to win when they apply for these things, so when I got it, I was really honored and surprised."

Daun Nicole DeFrance, a graduate student in structural engineering, hopes to complete a master of science with an arts twist before heading to Oxford University next year to work on a bachelor's degree in mathematics and philosophy.

"The thrust behind my master's thesis is not a technical subject in engineering, but rather a discussion about engineering and what it means to our societies and our view of ourselves," DeFrance explained. "I'm interested in the patterned relationships between structural engineering and other disciplines, such as music, architecture, cultural anthropology and religion. I'm asking: How do structures define a culture, much like other arts, and, to a greater extent, how do they define our humanity?"

DeFrance came to Cornell in June 1998 with a B.S. in architectural engineering from the University of Texas, Austin, and she credits engineering Professor Mary Sansalone with "instilling in me the belief and confidence I needed to learn much more about myself and my field." DeFrance notes that engineering Professor William Streett, as well as another graduate student, Rebekah Green, "spent countless hours discussing current issues with me and forcing me to expand my horizons."

A second bachelor's degree should give DeFrance the background for a Ph.D. thesis that bridges the gap between engineering and the humanities, she hopes.

"Too often engineers are perceived as nothing more than poorly read graduates of an elaborate trade school," she said, "and to a certain degree, this picture is fair. I believe, especially in the increasingly global community, that engineers can no longer concern themselves solely with numbers and material behavior. Engineers build the structures that define people's lives -- the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, the Empire State Building -- the symbols of their beliefs. It's time we acknowledged that responsibility and educated ourselves accordingly."

DeFrance spent last summer at Cornell developing computer code for a CD-ROM on nondestructive testing of concrete structures. At the University of Texas, she developed code to improve accuracy of the Global Positioning System to unprecedented detail.

Looking ahead, to completion of a Cornell Ph.D. and beyond, DeFrance hopes for a joint appointment at a research university, teaching interdisciplinary topics in engineering and philosophy. Her student experience at Texas and Cornell taught her the importance of strong mentoring relationships, she said, and she plans to follow that pattern with her future students "to help each one achieve their potential and not just a standard."

The Marshall Scholarship program is funded by the British government and is administered in the United Kingdom by the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission and in the United States by the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., and by five regional consulates-general.

In the past three years, eight Cornell students have won Marshall Scholarships. This year, 13 students were endorsed as Marshall candidates by a faculty endorsement committee of 27 members. Those endorsed included students from Cornell's colleges of Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Human Ecology, Agriculture and Life Sciences, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the Graduate School. Of the 13, seven received Marshall interviews, three were named finalists and two were chosen as winners.