Congratulations to Sofia Carozza, a senior in the Glynn Family Honors Program, for having been named one of Notre Dame’s two 2019 Marshall Scholars! Carozza, of South Bend, Indiana, will study neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. She is one of 10 Notre Dame students awarded one of the prestigious open-discipline British scholarships — Rhodes, Marshall, Mitchell and Gates Cambridge — since 2013.
Carozza is a Neuroscience and Behavior major in the College of Science with a supplemental major in Theology and a minor in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in the College of Arts and Letters. Besides being a member of the Glynn Program, she is a Hesburgh-Yusko Scholar and a Sorin Fellow of the Center for Ethics and Culture.
On campus, Carozza is a past research assistant at the Institute for Advanced Study and a current research assistant in the Development and Psychopathology Laboratory, where she is conducting her senior thesis on intergenerational trauma and maternal maltreatment. Beyond that, she has been involved with ND Students for Worker Justice, Show Some Skin and the Women’s Boxing Club, and she shaved her head for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation through “The Bald and the Beautiful.”
Off campus, Carozza is a mental health coach for at-risk youth and leads an exercise program for youths at the St. Joseph County Juvenile Justice Center. She spent the summer after her freshman year tutoring children with developmental disabilities and psychiatric disorders in Paraguay as an Experiencing the World Fellow with the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at Notre Dame; the summer after her sophomore year conducting neuroscience research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health, as an Amgen Scholar; and the summer after her junior year translating the science of toxic stress into policy initiatives, educational materials and community-based change at the ChildWise Institute in Montana.
Further afield, Carozza studied theology in Jerusalem and has taken short trips to El Salvador, Bolivia and Spain. She is fluent in Italian and conversational in Spanish, and she is a classically trained harpist.
Carozza plans to pursue a master’s of philosophy in basic and translational neuroscience leading into a doctorate in psychiatry at Cambridge. Ultimately, she hopes to establish a nonprofit foundation dedicated to translating neuroscience into child well-being.
“I am grateful and humbled to be named a Marshall Scholar. I’ve been blessed with an incredible formation in this campus community, and I’m deeply indebted to my amazing mentors in the faculty and staff of Notre Dame, without whom this would not have been possible,” Carozza said. “I’m excited about the opportunity to study at Cambridge, where I can continue to advance Notre Dame’s mission to be a force for good in the world ‘as learning becomes service to justice.’”
Nancy Michael, director of undergraduate studies, neuroscience and behavior at Notre Dame and Carozza’s academic adviser, said of Carozza, “Sofia is a rising star and I am certain she will contribute great things not only to the immediate fields of philosophy, psychology and neuroscience, but also to our society as a whole.”
Named for former U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Marshall Scholarships support Americans of high ability to study at graduate level at a U.K. institution in any area of study, covering university fees, cost of living, research and thesis grants and travel to and from the U.S., among other expenses.
Original Press Release by Erin Blasko, ND Media Relations