Recipient Spotlight | Facing the enemy
Nathan Sweeney received scholarship his Chahta Foundation scholarship in 2013 and is a future cancer researcher.
Nathan Sweeney is a warrior healed from his wounds, but still tracking the enemy. A survivor of childhood leukemia, Nathan is on his way to holding a Ph.D in cancer biology from the University of Arizona. Decades after he beat the deadly disease, he still harbors “enormous resentment toward cancer,” he says. In his research, he has studied DNA for ancestry.com and pediatric leukemia at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, both in Salt Lake City, where he received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Utah. Future success in his field will come with the responsibility to give back to the entity that contributed so much to his education, he says: “In order for the Choctaw Nation to be a force in providing opportunities to fellow Choctaws, it needs members that model the society that is the Choctaw Nation: a nation of intelligence, strength, and charity.”
