Madison Marsh, Miss America 2024, Builds a Health Policy Career on a Physics Foundation

Like many children, Madison Marsh dreamed of being an astronaut. But for Marsh, the dream didn’t diminish as the realities of her daunting career choice set in. That’s because Marsh doesn’t shy away from hard work. In fact, the Air Force officer, Harvard master’s student, cancer research advocate, and former Miss America believes it’s the most challenging paths that open up the most opportunities. And though she successfully navigated many of her early career milestones, today Marsh is striking out on a different course—one that has the potential to make an impact on numerous lives.

Marsh was one of five children growing up in Fort Smith, Arkansas, with her father, a physician, and her mother, a volunteer case worker for a child advocacy organization. As an eighth grader with NASA ambitions, Marsh created a 30-year plan. She obtained her pilot’s license at age 17, then entered the Air Force Academy, where she studied physics and later astrophysics, focusing her research on gamma-ray bursts and limiting magnitude studies. After graduation, she planned to train as a pilot.

Then Marsh’s trajectory changed. “About 75 percent of the way through my studies, I looked at the things making me most excited for my career,” she says. “It wasn’t becoming an astronaut anymore or being a physicist.” Instead, Marsh had discovered a passion for public health policy. Before Marsh entered the academy, her mother, Whitney Marsh, passed away from pancreatic cancer at age 41. Determined to honor her mother’s life, Marsh cofounded the Whitney Marsh Foundation. Through fundraising and awareness campaigns, the foundation provides support to Arkansas families that may not have access to pancreatic cancer screenings or affordable treatment.

“We want to help everyone who’s underrepresented in our state,” Marsh says. “Then, hopefully, we can take what we learn and carry that to small towns throughout America.”

As a physics major, Marsh honed her skills in computer programming, artificial intelligence, and critical thinking, which allowed her to take her senior capstone project in an unusual direction. “I got to do early detection research for pancreatic cancer and, using artificial intelligence, marry it up with CT scans in the medical field,” she says. “All of the hard things I did in physics opened up this door in my life to do not only policy work but also a lot of the other hard sciences.”

This realization served as a turning point for Marsh. “I could pick up a book and intimately understand some of the research papers, ongoing projects, or new medical findings about pancreatic cancer,” she says.

With this skill, Marsh felt better prepared on her path to craft sound public health policies. “It’s really easy to make poor policy by being ill informed,” she says. “But I can be the person who’s extremely informed on the medical side about what it means to institute medical policy in healthcare. This foundation is everything, and for me physics was this foundation.”

Also, as a college senior, Marsh competed for and won the title of Miss Colorado 2023. The following year, the newly minted physics graduate and Air Force officer went on to compete in the Miss America pageant—and became the first active duty military member to win the crown. For Marsh, the title represented an opportunity to thrive in several different roles.

“I didn’t have to lose any part of myself,” she says. “I realized I had so many interests and so many passions, and because I loved all of them, I knew that I wasn’t going to sacrifice or give up any of those different facets of who I am.”

During her year as Miss America, Marsh saw up close the impact her story had on those she met. “It proved to me that just by showing up and doing what you love, you can inspire so many people,” she says. “And you don’t have to have a flashy title—everyone has the ability to do that.”

Marsh also had an opportunity to share her mother’s story by appearing on major media outlets, including Today, CNN, and Good Morning America. Afterward, viewers reached out to thank her for opening up and to relate their own stories of loss. “There are people who deeply understand what it means to lose someone to such a harsh disease, and I feel like that’s given me a lot of life back.”

In the process, Marsh also discovered a love of public speaking. “I realized it’s not only my strong suit but also my passion,” she says. “There’s such power behind telling stories about struggling at the Air Force Academy or struggling with grief and what it looked like to lose my mom. Those are small things that are obviously close to my heart and my life, but you can help so many people through sharing and storytelling.”

Marsh is now earning her master’s degree in public policy from Harvard. She’s also beginning new research projects with the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. As an intern and researcher, she’ll work on policy pertaining specifically to the early detection of pancreatic cancer.

“I think it’s going to be a great learning opportunity for me to really see what that career will look like,” she says. “I love being on Capitol Hill and getting to speak with the members, and I especially love sharing my mom’s story.”

Marsh also looks forward to leading the Whitney Marsh Foundation as it grows and evolves, allowing her to continue serving and giving back to her Arkansas community.

All of her roles, Marsh says, are connected by leadership and service. “For me, leadership is not about commanding people,” she says. “It’s about serving the people that you lead. And that comes to fruition in so many different areas of my life.”

Though Marsh no longer aspires to be an astronaut, she believes her early path proved essential to her success today.

“It’s all worth it,” she says of her physics studies. “You get your rough exam scores back, or you’re the student staying up the latest studying because your degree is really intensive. But because I did the hard thing, it’s opening up a tremendous amount of doors and allowing me to do whatever I want in my career. So grind early and often, and stick with it.”

As a student at the academy, Marsh sought help and tutoring nearly every day. “I knew the only way that I was going to get better was by admitting my weaknesses,” she says. “Don’t allow one bad test score to get you down or write yourself off by saying, ‘Well, I’m not good at electromagnetism, so I’m just not going to be good at it.’” Instead, she says to focus on improving.

“You can always work harder, work with your professors, work with your classmates that are better at it than you, surround yourself with people who can lift you up and teach you the skills to get there,” Marsh says. “Then use your strong points to help out your classmates. Learning how to work with people and admitting when you need help—that’s how you’re going to succeed, especially when it gets hard.”