Max Yates, Montana State ’21, has been awarded a Marshall Scholarship that will enable him to study in England for two years. Yates was one of just 46 students to be named a 2022 scholar, placing him in the top 3 percent of a highly competitive applicant pool.

He’ll use the scholarship to study England’s innovations in primary care systems by earning a master’s degree at the University of Cambridge, then pursue a second master’s in health policy and health economics at the University of Birmingham. After, he plans to attend medical school and hopes to practice primary care medicine in a rural, underserved community.

“I want to use the experience of studying and researching primary care structures and health workforce studies in the U.K. to provide ideas that I can bring back to serve rural areas in Montana,” Yates said. He added, “The opportunity to specialize and study the fields I am interested in is enthralling. It will be a long journey ahead, but it will be interesting and, I think, fun.”

The Marshall Scholarship program enables high-performing young Americans to earn a degree in the United Kingdom. The scholarships were first awarded in 1954. Each year, up to 50 scholars are chosen to study on the graduate level in the field of their choice at a U.K. institution. For the 2022 scholarship class, 1,190 students applied, 163 were interviewed and 46 selected. Yates, who was also named a Truman scholar and a Tragos Quest to Greece scholar in 2020, is only the second student in Montana State history to receive the Marshall Scholarship.