From pantry to prestige: Taylor Allgood is UC’s first Marshall Scholar in 60 years
UC grad and Bearcats Pantry advocate earns one of the world’s most competitive scholarships
What started as a simple act of kindness has become a lifelong calling, and now a historic milestone, for University of Cincinnati alumna Taylor Allgood.
Taylor Allgood celebrates her 2024 master's degree from UC with the Bearcat.
On December 9, the Marshall Commission announced that Allgood is among this year’s Marshall Scholars, an honor reserved for only a few dozen of the nation’s most promising thinkers and changemakers. She becomes only the second UC graduate ever to receive the award and the first since Donna Kurtz, a 1965 graduate of UC’s Classics Department, who is today a senior research fellow at Oxford.
Read the Marshall Commission's release
Allgood’s path to one of the world’s most prestigious academic scholarships began with a first-year volunteer shift at UC’s Bearcats Pantry & Resource Center (BCP) where she discovered that providing food was never just about meals. It was about dignity, belonging and the chance for every student to succeed despite their circumstances.
A UC volunteer works at the Bearcats Pantry and Resource Center
Allgood, an Ashtabula, Ohio, native and University Honors student, graduated from UC in 2023 with dual degrees in international affairs and political science before completing her Master of Public Administration at UC in 2024. She learned of her Marshall selection in a moment that perfectly captured the heart of her work. She was at her job running American University’s campus food pantry in Washington, D.C., when the call came.
“I saw a Virginia number, and I don’t usually answer spam calls, but something told me to pick it up,” Allgood said. “When they told me I had been selected, I was standing in the very place that continues the work I do in food justice. It felt incredibly fitting.”
When they told me I had been selected, I was standing in the very place that continues the work I do in food justice. It felt incredibly fitting.
Taylor Allgood
Equipped with the Marshall Scholarship, she intends to pursue two graduate degrees in the United Kingdom beginning next fall: one in anthropology of food at SOAS University of London and one in international planning and development at Cardiff University. Together, these programs will equip her to complete her Ph.D. in anthropology, where she intends to explore “fullness” as a doctoral project and study a more human-centered approach to food security, one that moves beyond calories to consider cultural relevance, autonomy and dignity.
UC President Neville Pinto
UC President Neville Pinto is well-acquainted with Allgood’s drive for change.
“The nature of life at UC is that impressive student leaders pass through our campus every year,” said President Pinto. “It is a far rarer thing, however, to encounter a student like Taylor Allgood, whose vision and compassion transformed her alma mater during her time here. I’m thrilled that the Marshall Commission recognized Taylor’s incredible potential and is investing in her drive to not only feed the hungry and less fortunate, but also to study the topic as an academic scholar and elevate humanity along the way.”
UC’s Bearcats Pantry sits at the heart of Allgood’s story, and the BCP was the first place where she began to grasp how food access and educational persistence intersect. The pantry, now expanded into a larger and more visible space in Stratford Heights, has become one of UC’s most vital student support hubs. Last year alone, it served more than 2,200 individual students who made more than 9,400 visits, underscoring both the scale of need on a campus of UC’s size and the national reality that 20 to 30 percent of college students experience food insecurity.
Taylor Allgood stands in a greenhouse among vegetables with a fellow Bearcats Pantry volunteer.
While the BCP provides fresh and shelf-stable food, hygiene items and household goods, its impact reaches far beyond free groceries. Students receive wrap-around support. At the BCP, they can access professional attire through the Career Closet, receive meal vouchers redeemable at campus dining halls and pick up to-go bags at locations across campus for quick, discreet support.
For Allgood, the pantry was the catalyst for her purpose. Her conversations with student parents, international students, and first-generation students revealed the cultural, emotional and logistical barriers that often impact food insecurity. One encounter, she says, shaped everything that followed — getting to know a graduate student who was both a parent of two young children and an international student navigating multiple barriers at once.
“That relationship led me to create the Family First program,” Allgood explained, referring to the initiative she launched to provide diapers, wipes and essentials for UC students who are also balancing parenthood. “It became a close community,” she said. “Seeing the first baby in the program grow from a newborn to walking before I graduated, that was one of my proudest moments.” Today that program helps more than 50 UC families.
Taylor Allgood, at left, with fellow workers from The Market at American University, where she is now employed.
Allgood also went on to help build the Healthy Bites program as UC’s student body vice president. Healthy Bites allows students to apply for funds to be added to their university ID card that can be used to purchase healthy snacks at UC markets. Embraced by UC, the program continues to this day, providing food access at six different locations, including two satellite campuses.
Allgood continued expanding food justice programming at UC as a graduate assistant helping to run the BCP. Today, she is employed at American University as its first-ever student support coordinator, transforming its pantry, “The Market,” from a sterile distribution site into what she calls “a cultural and resource hub” that is rooted in dignity. One of her favorite aspects is helping students learn to cook meals using the ingredients they receive at The Market.
“Everything I know now and all the ways I’ve been able to transform The Market at AU is thanks to what I learned at the Bearcats Pantry,” she said.
Allgood’s commitment, said Jenny Hyest, director of UC’s Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, is what made her stand out to the Marshall Commission.
“The authenticity of her application was unmistakable,” said Hyest. “Food access isn’t just something Taylor does. It’s who she is. There can be no question that she will drive real change in this field. She has to because it is just that urgent to her. She has such clarity — clarity of voice, of vision and of purpose.”
Taylor Allgood with Associate Dean of Students Daniel Cummins and a fellow graduate during commencement.
During her Marshall interview, Allgood shared a deeply personal reflection that she believes resonated with the panel.
“I told them I was raised by a village of women — my mom, my aunt, my sister, my grandmother — and that their resilience is woven into my sense of what it means to be an American,” she recalled. “I didn’t always see myself in the story of this country, but I realized I’m as American as they come because I believe in its promise, and I feel a duty to change the systems within it that are unjust.”
Allgood prepared for her Marshall interview by reading a paper she had written years earlier at UC called “People Want to Pay for Their Food.” That paper became an IRB-approved study and in many ways inspired her thinking around making food access more fulfilling.
After completing her UK studies, Allgood plans to serve as a global food security analyst with organizations such as the United Nations World Food Programme. Her long-term mission is to help international food systems embrace food as an avenue to dignity and resilience, not just survival.
Taylor Allgood has graduated with multiple degrees from the University of Cincinnati.
Allgood wrote the following in her Marshall application:
“In a world where nearly one in 11 people face hunger, my mission is to transform how nations — particularly those with diverse immigrant and displaced populations like the United States and the United Kingdom — understand and implement dignified, sustainable approaches to food access.”
Reflecting on the award, Allgood remains grounded in gratitude for her mentors, her UC community and the students whose stories shaped her path.
“My purpose in life is to bring people together,” she said. “My way of doing that is through food. I’m just very grateful to Marshall that they see the importance of this work and want to invest in that vision.”
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