By Matt Kelly

Photo by Andrew Shurtleff

Kurt Mitman holds the journal he helped create, the Wilson Journal of International Affairs, which focuses on foreign affairs and honors former president and U.Va. alumnus Woodrow Wilson.

What drives an undergraduate student to perform research in three separate fields, pursue two unrelated majors and start one journal of international affairs?

“Curiosity,” said Kurt E. Mitman, an Echols Scholar from McLean, Va.

Mitman, 22, who graduates in May with dual degrees in physics and economics, is U.Va.’s sixth Marshall Scholar and one of 40 students at the University to have received a national Goldwater Scholarship since 1989.

To say Mitman has been productive as an undergraduate would be a gross understatement. Over the past four years, this energetic student has excelled at undergraduate research, earning himself a Harrison Undergraduate Research Award and the satisfaction of investigating such topics as neuroscience and sealed-bid auctions.

“I find problems and pose questions,” he said. “I challenge myself to see if I can do [new things]. I want to jump in and see what I can contribute.”

He spent his third year studying natural sciences at Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge, England. Now, thanks to the Marshall Scholarship, he will return to England this fall to pursue a master’s in physics at Oxford University.

“Kurt has made the most of his undergraduate career with two distinguished and unrelated majors, he studied abroad, he was engaged in research, lived on the Lawn and started an international affairs journal,” said Nicole F. Hurd, assistant dean of the Center for Undergraduate Excellence, which serves as a clearinghouse for undergraduate research projects. “He’s leaving a remarkable legacy. I don’t know anyone who has done all of that in such a short period of time.”

For the record, Mitman’s connection to U.Va. goes back 22 years — he was born at the Medical Center in 1982, while his father, Matthias Mitman, was a graduate student and his mother, Susan Elliot, was an instructor at the School of Nursing.