Samantha Hinton ’25 awarded NIH Undergraduate Scholarship Program | Today at Elon

Samantha Hinton ’25 has been selected for the National Institutes of Health Undergraduate Scholar Program. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Undergraduate Scholarship Program (UGSP) offers competitive scholarships to undergraduate students from disadvantaged backgrounds who are committed to careers in biomedical, behavioral, and social science health-related research.

The program provides up to $20,000 per academic year in tuition, educational expenses and reasonable living expenses for scholarship recipients, and it is renewable for up to four years. Scholars will spend ten weeks during the summer following each year of academic support working in an NIH research laboratory. After graduation, they will spend one year for each year of full-time support conducting research at NIH.

Elon students have had remarkable success in this competition in recent years. Last year, three seniors – Genesis Tolbert ’24, Christopher D’Inzeo ’24 and Samuel Ramirez ’24 – were selected as scholarship recipients.

An Elon College Fellow with a double major in public health and political science, Samantha Hinton discovered a passion for health-related research with real-world applications during her time at Elon. She applied for and received the Lumen Award in her sophomore year to fund her two-year project studying the effects of immigration enforcement on Latinx health utilization in Alamance County, which both inspired and prepared her to apply for the NIH Undergraduate Scholarship Program.

Molly Green, assistant professor of public health studies and Hinton’s research mentor, is confident that this experience will allow Hinton to continue the important work she began at Elon.

“Samantha is a truly exceptional student who has been a pleasure to work with,” Green said. “From the moment we began working together to plan her Lumen project proposal, Samantha has gone above and beyond to understand the material and ensure her work would be both rigorous and meaningful to society. To be awarded the highly prestigious NIH The Undergraduate Scholarship is a wonderful opportunity for Samantha to further her public health education, I know she will gain invaluable experience working at NIH after she graduates from Elon and can’t wait to see where this opportunity continues to take her her go.”

In addition to her Lumen project, Hinton’s semester abroad helped prepare her to receive the NIH UGSP.

“My experience studying abroad in Peru was a life-changing experience,” Hinton said. “While there, I had a chance to conduct a secondary research project that investigated the use of traditional medicine and birth practices in the Peruvian Amazon. This experience further strengthened my interest in health research and gave me the opportunity to immerse myself in a different culture!”

In the future, after her time at NIH, Hinton plans to earn a doctorate in health behavior or medical anthropology with the hopes of becoming a professor.

The 2025 application for the NIH Undergraduate Scholarship Program is now open! Interested students should contact the National and International Fellowships Office for support with the application process soon or to learn about other nationally competitive awards as soon as possible.