A globetrotter, by design

Engineering graduate William Marks departs Harvard with a hat trick of achievements: a Fulbright Scholarship , which will send him trekking across northern India this fall; a Gates Cambridge Scholarship , which will pay for his doctoral studies at Cambridge University, UK; and an offer of admission to Harvard Business School's 2+2 MBA program. Three very different prospects await him, but concerns about culture shock haven't crossed his mind. His undergraduate biomedical research has already taken him to at least six countries-including Norway, the United Arab Emirates, and China-and he's fluent in Mandarin and Spanish. "I believe the best way to get to know someone is to have a conversation in their own language," he says. "At some point, Arabic would be a good pick-up, and I guess while I'm in India I'll try to learn Hindi. That'll take care of another sizeable chunk of the world population." He's not joking. Marks' drive to connect and to build community is matched only by his urge to improve the quality of medical care for people around the world. "When he knows what he wants to accomplish, he doesn't let anything stand in his way," says Marks' former adviser, Sujata Bhatia , Assistant Director for Undergraduate Studies in Biomedical Engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) . "He is sincerely motivated to make a positive difference using the tools of biomedical engineering, both at Harvard and worldwide." "When I go to a hospital or see a doctor," Marks says, "the first thing I do is look around: What kind of cool 'toys' and gadgets do they have around the office?