The scholarship for 23-year-old Marcus Forst grants him a full ride for his graduate education at Stanford University.
The scholarship — the largest fully endowed program in the world — recognizes up to 100 students each year and grants them with full funding to pursue the graduate degree of their choice at Stanford.
But it hasn't been easy for Forst.
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"On April Fools' Day in 2015, I was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma," he said. "I had a big tumor around my heart. I had my last treatment on July Fourth, so it was a true Independence Day."
After seven months of intense chemotherapy and three years of treatment, he is now cancer-free, spending his time researching physics, public health care in the U.S., and other issues.
Barbara Gorka met Forst three years ago in a meeting, which she calls Fellowship 101. She helped him apply for fellowship and scholarships over the years.
She recalled one research program where she watched his interaction with other students.
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"He was one of the most intellectually curious students, but he was interested in what everybody was doing, and asking really great questions," Gorka remembered. "You could tell at that point he was striving to be able to talk about his engineering and physics research in a way that everybody would understand."
Forst will graduate from Temple in May and begin at Stanford in September.