Upon graduation Dedman Distinguished Scholars have gone on to enroll in the country’s best graduate programs, medical and law schools, including Harvard, Stanford, Yale, University of Chicago, and MIT. Dedman Scholars also compete for and win prestigious post baccalaureate scholarships. Three have been awarded a British Marshall Scholarship, two a Harry S. Truman Scholarship, one a Rhodes Scholarship, and one a Hertz Foundation Fellowship and National Science Foundation Fellowship.
Not only have Dedman alumni worked in presidential administrations, prestigious law firms, consulting agencies, engineering firms, and top universities, but many have pursued careers in non-profit and public service. Dedman Alumni also include physicians, architects, financial analysts, software engineers, entrepreneurs, illustrators, and designers, to name a few. Alumni stay connected through social media and occasional events on campus, and they are available for mentoring and networking with current students.
Most recently, in May 2023, our alumnus and Alumni Steering Committee member Heidi Boutros Gesch was featured in the College of Liberal Arts Life & Letters, “To Do Justice,” where she describes how the Dedman Distinguished Scholarship brought her to UT Austin. The profile highlights her law career after she won the Marshall Scholarship to study at Oxford, then attended Yale Law School, and went on to work as a prosecutor for the Department of Justice. Heidi travels from her home in Washington D.C. to UT Austin every year to serve on the first-year scholars selection committee.
The Chair of our Steering Committee, alumnus Dr. Travis Cosban, was also featured in Life & Letters in 2018, “Be Your Authentic Self,” where he talks about the profound impact that his DDSP mentors had on his life as an undergraduate at UT: “Dedman gave me the ability to not only grow in my academic success but also my personal well-being. The program did all this through the sense of family that it fosters. When you attend a university as large as UT, a small and close-knit family is the best gift any student can ever receive.” Travis went on to medical school to become an emergency medicine physician and returns to UT Austin every year to lead the selection process for new first-year Dedman Scholars.
If any Dedman alumni reading this wish to connect with us and stay updated on the latest program news, please email us at dedmanscholars@austin.utexas.edu.