Stephanie Mitchell, a PhD student in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, was awarded the 2025 Pat Tillman Scholarship to support her research on zoonotic disease patterns, particularly interspecies disease transmission and outbreak containment. The Pat Tillman Scholarship is awarded to U.S. military veterans, service members, and spouses who demonstrate leadership, service, scholarship and impact. The application for the Tillman Scholarship opens in December and is due annually in February. Apply at the Pat Tillman Foundation website.
Stephanie’s advice on how to prepare a competitive application for the Tillman Scholarship is:
- Directly answer every part of each prompt.
- Make sure your essays clearly address all components of the question. It’s easy to ramble, be intentional about staying focused within the word limit.
- Ask people from different parts of your life to review your essays.
- For example, I had both people who knew me during my military life and people who didn’t know me then read my drafts. Each group offered different, valuable perspectives. Be open to their feedback.
- Attend the information sessions offered by the Pat Tillman Foundation.
- These sessions answered many of the questions I had about the application and the scholarship as a whole.
- . Don’t be discouraged if you’re not selected the first time.
- I applied during my master’s program four years ago and wasn’t successful. I tried again because I’d experienced significant personal growth since then, and I knew I was a stronger applicant with where I was in life this time around.
- Remember that this is more than a scholarship—it’s a community.
- You’re applying for far more than financial support. As you write your essays, think about how you hope to contribute to the Pat Tillman community and what you already bring to your own communities.