David Karp, a mechanical and aerospace engineering major, won a prestigious scholarship to the University of Cambridge for showing great promise in research.

Karp, along with mathematics major George Boxer, will be Churchill Scholars, an annual honor bestowed upon 14 students nationally by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States.

“David and George are both outstanding students who have excelled in their courses and their research, and it is marvelous that both their accomplishments and their promise for luminous lives of scholarly inquiry have been recognized with Churchill Scholarships,” said Peter Bogucki, associate dean for undergraduate affairs in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and chair of the University’s Churchill Nomination Committee.

Their selection for the scholarships is “a tribute to Princeton’s tradition of undergraduate involvement in research and scholarly inquiry,” Bogucki said.

The Churchill Foundation, established in 1959, offers American students of exceptional ability and outstanding achievement the opportunity to pursue graduate studies in engineering, mathematics or the sciences. The scholars live at Churchill College, one of the newer colleges at Cambridge, built in tribute to the noted statesman, orator and strategist. The scholarship pays for a year of tuition, fees, living expenses and travel.

Karp, of Berwyn, Pa., will earn certificates in applications of computing and applied and computational mathematics.

As an intern in the Aeronautics Scholarship Program at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Karp analyzed data from the Blackhawk helicopter as part of an effort to develop innovative blade control technology. Last year he earned the L.S. Skip Fletcher Scholarship from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Elected to both Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, Karp twice has won the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence. He also earned the Class of 1939 Princeton Scholar Award, given to the rising senior with the highest academic standing.

At Cambridge, Karp intends to earn a master of philosophy degree in engineering, focusing on computational fluid dynamics. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering in the United States after his studies at Cambridge.