Emory University will send four outstanding graduating seniors to Scotland for additional study next fall through the elite Robert T. Jones Jr. Scholarship program.
Emory College of Arts and Sciences seniors Lydia King, David Lee, Elizabeth Martin and Lucas San Miguel will complete a year of interdisciplinary study at the University of St Andrews in honor of the legendary amateur golfer and scholar who attended Emory School of Law.
Known as the Bobby Jones Scholars, more than 400 exceptional students have participated in the program since it began in 1976. University committees select recipients on the basis of academic excellence, exemplary character and integrity.
This year’s cohort was drawn from a pool of 49 applicants of the highest caliber, says Joanne Brzinski, Emory College senior associate dean for undergraduate education and director of the Bobby Jones Program.
“It is always a challenge to select just four from the highly accomplished students who have left their mark on Emory,” Brzininski says. “Lydia, David, Elizabeth and Lucas are extraordinary students and have been effective leaders at Emory. They will represent Emory well as ambassadors to St Andrews and to Scotland.”
The students may take courses without seeking a degree, but all four Bobby Jones scholars plan to pursue master’s degrees at St Andrews that build on their Emory research and coursework. Their diverse areas of study will include sustainable development, psychology, social anthropology and global politics.
Meet the 2025 Bobby Jones Scholars
Lydia King
A Dean’s Scholar and Oxford College graduate who grew up in Rwanda and Kenya, Lydia King first cultivated her college community at the Oxford Organic Farm. The experience inspired her to start Oxford’s campus garden, as well as Emory’s gardening club on the Atlanta campus.
Her interest in her fellow student farm workers prompted her first anthropological study — ethnographies on the role that the work played in student mental health — and led to a double major in linguistics and anthropology and human biology. She later crafted a research project on the language of undergraduate reflection, which was presented in the U.S. and at Lancaster University in the U.K.
At every step since, King has combined what one recommender called a “profound ability to connect with people” with a passion for communication and public health to become a leader in several academic, community and research endeavors.
On campus, she served as a leader with Volunteer Oxford and Volunteer Emory, a tutor at the Emory Writing Center and president of the Emory Gender Expansive and Women's Ultimate Frisbee team. King also volunteered with Open Hand Atlanta and the International Rescue Committee.
Her interest in connections between place and health led to an internship on the education team of the CDC Museum in Atlanta, and last summer, work as a community engagement intern with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda. She also works in the lab of Emory environmental scientist Tom Gillespie, conducting a qualitative analysis of interviews of community members and health care workers who live in the regions surrounding Gombe National Park in Tanzania. She received the Trevor E. Stokol scholarship for the project, as she expands her research for her honors thesis.
King will pursue a master’s of research in social anthropology at St Andrews, combining ethnographic research and linguistic analysis on the study of zoonotic diseases. She plans to pursue a career in global health, promoting more effective research and communication between the U.S. and nations of East Africa.
David Lee
David Lee was already a fourth-degree black belt in taekwondo poomsae and member of the U.S. National Taekwondo Team when he entered Emory.
The political science major and economics minor from suburban Atlanta will graduate having earned a gold medal at the World Takewondo Poomsae Championships, applying the sport’s emphasis on discipline and perseverance to his academic, research and service efforts.
Lee’s trajectory, which one recommender described as “nothing short of brilliant,” has included serving as a U.S. Senate intern, captaining for two years on the nationally ranked Emory Mock Trial team and working for two years as a legal intern with Atlanta’s Policing Alternatives and Diversion Initiative (PAD). He also conducted research for The Carter Center and Politics of Policing Lab, where he collected data for an upcoming book.
He exceled at every turn by working to create space for collaboration and community. He serves on both the political science and economics student advisory committees, as well as the Emory Police Department Community Partnership.
Lee will expand that research at St Andrews, with a goal of conducting a comparative analysis of harm reduction policies in Scottish and American law enforcement in pursuit of a master’s degree in global social and political thought. He also intends to join the campus taekwondo club and participate in the annual British University Taekwondo League competition.
Lee plans to attend law school after his year in Scotland, looking toward a career with the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights department.
Elizabeth Martin
Driven by what one recommender described as an “insatiable curiosity,” Dean’s Achievement Scholar Elizabeth Martin pursued both research and athletics during her time at Emory from immersive study at a Buddhist monastery in India to goaltending for the co-ed Emory ice hockey team and playing on the women’s lacrosse and club soccer squads.
Those wide-ranging interests prompted Martin to major in interdisciplinary studies, with self-selected concentrations in psychology, sociology and religion. It also proved to be the basis for her leadership in the Interdisciplinary Exploration and Scholarship (IDEAS) Fellowship, a competitive campus program that encourages thinking across and between disciplines.
The common theme for the Boston native’s pursuits was community building and a commitment to creating spaces where she and others could grow. In the classroom, those efforts included her work to co-design and co-teach five one-credit courses and serve as a teaching assistant for two other upper-level courses.
On campus, Martin also volunteered as a Matriculate Advising Fellow, participated in an Israel-Palestine book club and served as a student representative on the Emory University Senate's committee on transportation and parking and the Emory College committee on admissions and scholarships.
In addition to her study through Emory’s Tibetan Mind Body Sciences program in India, she studied the histories, cultures and tensions in the Middle East as a Geller International Fellow and writes both articles and podcasts for Voice in Sport, a global community of women athletes.
Martin plans to pursue a master’s degree in psychology at St Andrews, a conversion program that specifically prepares honors students who did not major in the field to study psychology at a doctoral level. She plans to work in a career that includes education, research and clinical engagement.
Lucas San Miguel
A Robert W. Woodruff Scholar from Atlanta, Lucas San Miguel embraced every opportunity to develop his business and language skills, looking globally for prospects and even carving out some of his own.
The double major in economics and Chinese studies took a gap year before arriving at Emory, studying Chinese in Taiwan through his second National Security Language Initiative for Youth Scholarship from the U.S. State Department. He later won the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship to study advanced Chinese and also examined the economics of China and Latin America while earning First Class Honours during his junior year studying at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
San Miguel augmented his academic work with experiential learning, such as interning for two summers at KPMG in AI technology transformations as a consultant in Atlanta and Los Angeles.
He spent a third summer at an eco-tourism resort in rural Nicaragua, where he collaborated with local nonprofits to promote sustainable business development. He built and executed the program while simultaneously completing his advanced Chinese coursework via virtual study.
Even with his globetrotting, San Miguel was a known presence on campus. He has been a leader in the Woodruff Scholars program and with Emory TableTalk, Consult Your Community and the Emory Association of Latino Professionals for America. He also worked all four years as Emory’s Coca-Cola Ambassador, twice ranked as the top liaison among the 100-plus employees in the national program. He won the Heart of Emory Award in 2022 for his positive community building on campus.
At St Andrews, San Miguel will pursue a master’s in global sustainable development, with plans to focus his academic research on investment-led economic development in Latin America. Long term, he hopes to combine his passion for developmental economics with his language skills and work in economic development in Latin America.