Posted on December 4, 2001 at 1:55 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — In less than four years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), senior Jason Lott, 21, has assisted four renowned brain researchers, presented his own research on everything from neuroscience to ethics, and published a paper in a scholarly journal. Now he has been selected as one of 40 students in the United States to win the prestigious Marshall Scholarship. He is the second UAB student to be offered a Marshall Scholarship. Neelaksh Varshney, UAB’s first Rhodes Scholar, was also offered a Marshall Scholarship in 1999. Lott is the only winner from Alabama this year.

Marshall Scholarship is the most distinguished of the British scholarship programs because it was established by an Act of Parliament in 1953 and is financed by the British government. The scholarship was created to commemorate the humane ideals of the European Recovery Program, also known as the Marshall Plan.

The Marshall Scholarships finance young Americans of high ability to attend an undergraduate or graduate program at any university in the United Kingdom for two years. A scholarship amounts to about $24,000 a year, which includes tuition, fees, a book grant, travel monies and a personal allowance. Forty scholarships are awarded annually.

The Marshall program’s Atlanta Region Selection Committee, comprised of four former Marshall scholars and the British consul-general, interviewed 21 nominees and awarded five scholarships. The Atlanta Region alone received 85 applications. About 950 students from eight regions of the United States applied for the competitive scholarships.

Past winners include U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Friedman.

Lott, who has a dual major in philosophy and mathematics, says he would like to enter the philosophy, psychology and physiology program at Oxford University.

Since the start of his freshman year at UAB, Lott has taken senior level courses, including two senior-level philosophy courses and three senior courses in math. He is a student in the UAB Honors Program, which admits fewer than two percent of all undergraduates at UAB. He also was accepted into the Early Medical School Acceptance Program (EMSAP).

In the summer of 1999, Lott worked with one of several of his mentors, philosopher Gregory Pence, Ph.D., on a research project examining the global perspectives of organ procurement policy and for a book on ethical issues in medicine. That same year, Pence selected Lott, along with another student, to attend the First National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference at Princeton University.

“I have taught brilliant students before,” Pence said, “but none who have the fire-in-the belly like Jason. He was the only freshman who ever told me ‘I want to accomplish something great before I graduate from here.’ He is hungry to do that: to use his mental firepower to do great things, to put his ambition to work on some great project. He likes to be very busy, to push himself, to be over-extended. It’s as if, otherwise, life is boring.”

He also worked with UAB mathematician Gunter Stolz, Ph.D., and published a paper in December 1999 analyzing the recent school shootings for the Yale Political Quarterly.

“Philosophy does a good job of framing problems,” Lott said, “sorting through the issues and arriving at what the problems are. I enjoy mathematics because it has significant explanatory powers. It helps us understand the world better, and I like the analytic discipline that it requires.”

In the fall of 2000, Lott became a research assistant for UAB brain researcher Michael Friedlander, Ph.D., and neuroscientist Read Montague, Ph.D., of the Baylor School of Medicine, analyzing the detailed connections between the functions of the brain and mental function.

“Working with him [Friedlander] was amazing,” Lott said. “He is an intense researcher, and he has so much knowledge in so many subfields of neuroscience. In doing research with him, you really get a complete picture on particular aspects of brain research.”

Earlier this year, Lott was a research assistant for UAB psychologist Michael Sloane, Ph.D., developing human reasoning models for format dependent information, and over the summer, he assisted neuroscientist J. Anthony Movshon, Ph.D., at New York University with a research study on the visual processing system. After the Marshall scholarship ends, Lott says he wants to pursue a combined M.D./Ph.D. degree. His goal is to enter the biotechnology field.

“I actually want to go into industry and develop neuroprosthetic devices,” Lott said, “and I want to pursue research at the edge of brain science. The brain is the last frontier. Understanding the brain means coming to understand ourselves. What better way to improve someone’s life than starting with the brain. There is a computer revolution going on and so, the two [brain research and technology] seem to come together. That is where I want to be.”

Lott has earned several honors and awards for academic achievement while at UAB, including membership in Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society, the McCallum Presidential Scholarship, the Student Research Award for four summers of research at UAB as well as departmental honors in philosophy.

Lott’s achievements, however, didn’t start at UAB. He was valedictorian of his high school class at the Donoho School in Anniston. He also was a member of the Donoho School’s soccer team.

“I’ve played soccer since I was 8,” said Lott, who now plays intramural soccer at UAB. “I haven’t gotten much better since 8, but I’ve always enjoyed the game.”

Lott says he chose to attend UAB because he was told he would have opportunities to conduct research and he was attracted to UAB’s Honors Program.

“The Honors Program really gives you an interdisciplinary approach to leaning facts and tackling issues in life,” Lott said. “It really provides a comforting environment in which one can learn.”

“Jason is prodigiously bright,”said Ada Long, Ph.D., director of the UAB Honors Program. “We get a lot of smart students, but Jason is in category of his own. He’s not interested in coming up with opinions that will please the teacher, but he is tenacious in coming up with an answer that he believes is true. He is immensely focused and very determined. In dealing with ideas, he reminds me of a terrier that just won’t let go of something, but a terrier with an extraordinary vocabulary and knowledge.”

When Lott isn’t studying, conducting research, writing papers or attending conferences, he manages to find time for community service. He has been a math tutor and a volunteer at Bread and Roses, a shelter for women. He also has worked at the Woodlawn Soup Kitchen, conducted presentations before school and community groups for the UAB School of Public Health Sexual Health Through Peer Education program and helped organize a fundraising gala for the Indian Cultural Association’s Big Brother/Big Sister charity.

Lott is the son of Taska and Toney Lott of Anniston.

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