Ahmad Elabbar

All Disciplines Award - University of California, San Diego

Ahmad is a PhD student in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, researching the role of justice in global climate assessments.

Having grown up between cultures and countries, moving as a child from Leicestershire to Medina and back again, Ahmad developed an interest in global issues that cross borders and present challenges to diverse communities and ways of life. As such, climate change soon became Ahmad’s focus of study, a common thread throughout his academic journey, which began with a Master’s in Physics from Loughborough University, followed by a Master’s in Philosophy from the University of Oxford and a Master’s in History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine from the University of Cambridge.

Along the way, Ahmad noted a separation in popular and ethical debates over climate justice, which insulate climate science from questions of justice, giving the impression that justice is not a concern for science. Ahmad’s project at the Institute for Practical Ethics at the University of California, San Diego, aims to bridge this separation, placing justice at the heart of climate assessment. He is delighted to join the Fulbright community and experience the joys of discovering the U.S. 

Oluwagbemisola Anifowose-Eso

All Disciplines Postgraduate Award, Columbia University (2022-23)

Gbemisola is a recent first-class graduate from the University of Warwick where she studied Politics and Sociology.

Through her experience growing up between Nigeria and the UK, Gbemisola recognized that despite the cultural, political, and economic distinctiveness of these countries, they are affected by and responding to the same global issues. Supported by the Fulbright Scholarship, Gbemisola will pursue the MA in Global Thought at Columbia University, where she hopes to conduct an interdisciplinary study of critical global issues – from pandemics to climate crises and social injustice – with the aim of developing practical interventions to address these. She is particularly interested in learning about how urban areas have evolved in the global era and hopes to investigate the contestation of public space in global cities across the world.

Outside of her academics, Gbemisola is looking forward to immersing herself in New York’s iconic jazz scene and exploring the city’s vast culinary offerings.

Adam Boggon

All Disciplines Award - MPH in Health Management at Harvard University

Adam is a psychiatry trainee in London and an honorary lecturer at UCL. He grew up in West Fife playing youth professional football and spent time at NASA through the Scottish Space School. He studied Medicine at St Andrews (BSc), Aberdeen (MBChB), and in East Africa with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (DTM&H) – winning national medals and awards for medical debating, steeplechase, and Scottish traditional singing. He’s practiced in Edinburgh, Inverness, Orkney, London, and at the MRC-Unit The Gambia. During the Covid-19 pandemic he worked in acute medicine and intensive care, helped establish an early vaccination centre, and coordinated the redeployment of over 300 doctors and medical students at the Royal Free Hospital. He believes decisive, collaborative clinician leadership is integral to the future of the NHS and the morale of its workforce. He will undertake a MPH in Health Management at Harvard.

Adam’s writing has been shortlisted for the John Byrne Award, the Lancet Wakley Prize and won the Mountaineering Scotland mountain writing competition. He looks forward to exploring the US national parks in his fell running shoes and chatting enthusiastically to strangers.

Robert Bray

All Disciplines Award - Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Rob is a PhD student at Ulster University having completed the International Masters in Fire Safety Engineering, an Erasmus Mundus course organised by the Universities of Ghent, Edinburgh and Lund. Prior to this, whilst completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Central Lancashire, he was part of a unique program dedicated to finding future leaders of the fire and rescue service. This offered him the opportunity to work as a firefighter in Blackburn for two years.

Whilst in Massachusetts he hopes to broaden his understanding of the world. Rob is a lover of history and how it shapes art and architecture. He is keen to explore some great museums including returning to the place where he proposed, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.  

Rob will attend Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. He aims to explore experimental methods of quantifying material burning behaviour with the intention of improving fire science scalability. He would like to contribute to improving accountability and integrity in the construction industry so that all communities are afforded the right to safe homes. He also hopes to promote fire engineering as a career with the aim of eliminating one of the profession’s major challenges, the deficit of engineers.  

Kieran Carty

Sir Cyril Taylor Memorial Award for Social Entrepreneurship - Master’s in Business Administration at Stanford University

Kieran is from South London, and has worked globally as an investment professional in the private equity and investment banking industry for the past six years. During this time, he has been fortunate to work in both the private and non-profit sectors, for the likes of Credit Suisse and Open Society Foundations. He has also enjoyed traveling extensively, investing across 12 different countries located across East and West Africa, as well as India and the Middle East.

Kieran’s career began at Credit Suisse, where he interned for a number of years as part of the Steps to Success Scholarship program. Post-graduation, Kieran joined Credit Suisse full-time as an Investment Banking Analyst focused on M&A (mergers and acquisitions) for financial institutions. In 2015, Kieran co-founded a non-profit, [Black British City Group (https://www.blackbritishcitygroup.com/), and earned a first-class degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Manchester. Prior to that, he went to an underperforming state school in Lewisham.

Kieran is extremely excited to explore entrepreneurship whilst completing my MBA at Stanford GSB. Moreover, he’s honoured to represent Black British culture as a Fulbright Scholar and share a perspective that is often forgotten, overlooked, or misunderstood within the UK and US.

Thomas Copeland

Alistair Cooke Award in Journalism - Master's degree in Journalism at Columbia University

Thomas Copeland is from Northern Ireland and will graduate from Queen’s University Belfast in 2022 with a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

Thomas’s passion for public service journalism began at the age of 16 when he set-up Challenges NI, a platform for young people’s voices on the issues affecting their lives. As Head of News at Queen’s Radio, Thomas has won student journalism awards in the UK and Ireland. He also works as an Assistant Producer with Third Street Studios on BBC current affairs programmes and is a freelance broadcast journalist for Sky News and BBC Radio 5 Live. Thomas is Chair of the Royal Television Society NI Futures Panel, a member of the US Embassy Dublin Young Leaders’ Council and an alumnus of the Washington Ireland Program.

Thomas is excited to be undertaking a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University. He intends to learn new broadcast and multi-media skills and to develop innovative investigative techniques in the dynamic journalistic landscape of New York City. Thomas’ ambition is to harness the power of journalism in order to make a meaningful impact on the lives of audiences in Northern Ireland and across the Globe.

Melissa Danvers

All Disciplines Award - MA in International Education at George Washington University

A Londoner of Ghanaian and Jamaican heritage, Melissa is an aspiring international educator with a first-class degree in Modern Languages from the University of Warwick. Upon graduating in 2018, she moved to Japan to work as an Assistant Language Teacher, specialising in English and Global Citizenship Education. This position not only reaffirmed her belief in the value of education and cultural exchange, but also enabled her to explore her own identity as a member of the global African diaspora. Since returning to the UK, Melissa has worked in higher education, supporting widening participation initiatives at the University of Cambridge and study abroad programming at the University of Reading.

At the George Washington University, Melissa will combine her interests in education, cross-cultural exchange and diasporic African communities through an MA in International Education. Harnessing the knowledge that she obtains from this degree programme, she hopes to coordinate Anglo-African educational initiatives that promote access to learning and facilitate intercultural interactions.

Outside of academia, Melissa enjoys volunteering, outdoor activities and dance. While in the US, she is excited to contribute to her local D.C. community, explore the Appalachian Trail and visit New York to experience the city’s unique On2 salsa scene!

Phebe Ekregbesi

All Disciplines Award - Master’s in Molecular Microbiology at Johns Hopkins University

Phebe graduated with a BSc in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Bath in 2018. Phebe’s passion for malaria research was crystalised during a year-long internship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where she worked in collaboration with NHS partners to publish a report into causes anaemia during sepsis.

Since 2019 she has been a research technician in various immunology labs within at Imperial College London. Phebe has contributed through technical support and training to ongoing research projects ranging from infectious diseases to asthma. While at JHU, Phebe aims to investigate the immune consequences of pregnancy-associated malaria from the maternal, foetal, and infant perspectives. This Fulbright will give them the opportunity to integrate learning from the classroom, laboratory, and community settings to encourage better dialogue between scientists, participants, policy-makers, and the general public.

Outside of the laboratory, Phebe volunteers with multiple organisations promoting STEM field to under-represented groups – whether mentoring young girls and non-binary people through the Stemettes; or celebrating black voices with the Black in Immuno Hub -  and is excited to expand this work within Baltimore.

Kerris Dunn

Executive Master of Public Administration Award – Innovation and Policy Development at NYU Wagner

Kerris is a UK diplomat and experienced policy and programme management professional, with a focus on international development and corporate management in fragile and conflict-affected states. She has spent 12 years in the UK government, first as a policy analyst at HM Treasury. She then joined the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, where she served in UK High Commissions (i.e. UK embassies) in Freetown and Nairobi and UK embassies in Khartoum and Kabul, as well as a range of roles in London.

Her experience overseas has given her a deep appreciation of the contribution public services and an independent civil service make to public well-being. While at NYU and UCL, Kerris hopes to learn from expert policy practitioners and build a network of public servants. She also hopes to identify ways to increase the engagement of communities traditionally excluded from the policy making process, an ambition influenced by her work and inner-city London upbringing.

Kerris was educated at King’s College London and the Grey Coat Hospital Church of England Comprehensive School for Girls. Outside of work, Kerris has trekked to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and currently volunteers as an assistant coach at Athletic Football Club Lewisham. She can’t wait to experience New York’s live music scene.

Peter Gracey

All Disciplines Award - Master's in Food Science and Technology at Cornell University

During his bachelor’s in food quality, safety and nutrition at Queen’s University Belfast, Peter researched plant-based diets and their impact on nutritional adequacy, with an interest in influencing sustainable diets for the western population.

His interest in food began at A-level where he learned about the impact of food on athletic performance, which later resulted in him pursuing an internship with a leading UK retailer in 2019. This experience demonstrated the impact of research on not just retailers but on customer eating habits, this prompted Peter to pursue further study into vegan meat analogues, which highlighted the challenges that the food industry faces in terms of population growth, protein demand, and sustainability. With the Fulbright scholarship, Peter hopes to further his learning about consumer perception of food, and how these conceptions can be more positive towards sustainable diets.  

Outside of his studies, Peter has a passion for running and has been selected to represent Northern Ireland. As an elite athlete, Peter enjoys competing and has a personal best of 14.36 for running a 5K.

James Hong-En Kang

Fulbright-Elsevier Data Analytics Award - Master’s in Public Health at University of California, Berkeley

James is a Gastroenterology doctor interested in the use of epidemiology and ‘big data’ analytics to improve healthcare delivery and equity. Since qualifying from the University of Oxford, James moved to the East of England to work as an Academic Foundation doctor and later as an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow, Specialist Registrar and Chief Resident at his hospital. Between hospital shifts, James learned to work with large epidemiological datasets as part of a European cohort study examining the role of nutrition in cancer development.

At the University of California, Berkeley, James will learn methodologies that will be foundational for his future research career. Although he is currently interested in using big data to develop risk prediction models for early cancer detection, such methodology will be applicable to many different health problems. After his return to the UK, James hopes to use the knowledge and expertise that he gains abroad to complete a PhD and eventually become an academic clinician.  

Outside of the classroom, James aims to explore California’s national parks. He looks forward to experiencing graduate school life including attending a college football game. In turn, he plans to share his passion for (English) football and specifically Tottenham Hotspur F.C

Christina Last

All Disciplines Award - Master’s in Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Christina Last is a Data Scientist using advanced analytics to understand our built environment. Having grown up with a passion for understanding urban inequality, she's helped build software, and plan cities in Harvard, London, and NYC. Christina attended the University of Bristol, graduating with a First Class in Geography with Quantitative Methods. 

Christina has collaborated with a number of city governments and international organizations as a Research Data Scientist at The Alan Turing Institute, (the UK's National Institute for AI and Data Science), where she built machine learning techniques examining the human impact of the industrial revolution. She has led various international research projects using cutting-edge machine learning to solve humanitarian challenges, most recently as a Senior Data Scientist collaborating with UNICEF to model air quality during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Christina's ambition is to be a world leader in artificial intelligence, informing the actions of governments and developers as they transform built environments. During a master's in Urban Science at MIT, Christina aims to develop software and hardware solutions to lay the groundwork for permanent and long-term improvements to walking conditions on the city’s streets.

Rizwaan Malik

All Disciplines Award

Rizwaan is deeply passionate about improving educational outcomes for disadvantaged children. He began his career as a maths teacher in Bradford, where he also held responsibilities for improving student attendance as Assistant Head of Year. After leaving the classroom, he worked in Uganda and Sierra Leone for an education social enterprise, and then most recently, for the Behavioural Insights Team - the UK Government's 'nudge unit'. In this role, he designed, implemented and evaluated interventions to increase student engagement with online learning and catch up tutoring following covid-related school closures. Rizwaan also volunteers as a community governor for a large secondary school in East London. Rizwaan holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford, an MA in Educational Leadership from the University of Manchester, and a PGCE from Sheffield Hallam University. 

Informed by this experience, Rizwaan believes that data science and technology has the potential to significantly improve public education systems around the world, and will be exploring this topic further whilst at Stanford. 

Outside of work, Rizwaan is obsessed with food, spending most of his time cooking for friends or eating out in London. He's particularly excited to try lots of good Mexican food in California, and plans to sample every taco in the bay area.

Temitope Mayomi

All Disciplines Award - Gallatin's Master of Arts Program at NYU

Tope is an anti-violence worker and researcher with an abolitionist vision of justice. As a Black disabled person, their experiences with psychiatry pushed them towards abolition where they found community as a grassroots organizer and educator with the transformative justice collective, Cradle Community. 

Tope is a co-author of Cradle’s first book, 'Brick by Brick: How We Build a World Without Prisons (2021)'. Tope has worked with both perpetrators and survivors of violence in prisons and in the community and recognises the structural roots of normalized violence. After completing a BA in Social Sciences at King’s College London, Tope will be studying a Master of Arts in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University to analyse the role of psychiatry in legitimizing incarceration by naturalizing violence within individual psychology. Tope aims to use their scholarship to continue exploring alternative modes of accountability that do not reproduce harm or treat individuals as disposable through future work in criminal defence mitigation. Tope is looking forward to the opportunity to build and learn in solidarity with organizers in New York on working towards community safety.

Vankshita Mishra

Fulbright - BAFTA Postgraduate Scholarship

Vankshita Mishra is a filmmaker, writer & actor based in London. After graduating in 2020 from Durham University with a bachelor’s degree in Natural Sciences (Physics & Chemistry), she has been writing, directing and editing her own short films.

She also works as an actor, assistant director and production assistant on others’ projects and as a freelance science tutor too. Alongside her work, Vankshita is a member of the Other Cinemas film school that works as a collective, championing radical voices in film that think beyond the mainstream. Her aim in all work is to be multi-disciplinary and to bridge gaps between cultures & subjects.

Hassan Qayyum

Fulbright Global Wales Postgraduate Award - Master's of Human Resource Management at Ohio State University

Hassan was born and raised in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. His educational background up until this point has been in Accounting and Finance having achieved an upper second-class honours in Accounting and Finance in 2018, and a master’s degree in Forensic Audit and Accounting, both from the University of South Wales.

Hassan is passionate and understands the importance of diversity in the corporate workplace, and with world events such as Black Lives Matter, the focus of diversity and inclusion for HR departments has become more important than ever.

During his time studying at Fisher College of Business, at the Ohio State University, Hassan is looking forward to expanding on his knowledge in the field of Human Resources which he hopes will push him to become a leader in the ever-changing field.

Outside of his studies, Hassan is looking forward to explore Columbus and its surrounding areas, including its nature, museums and sport. He is also looking forward to exploring the unique history shared between Wales and Ohio.

Sharif Kazemi

All Disciplines Award - Master's of Public Policy at The School of International Public Affairs at Columbia University

Mohammadmehdi’s experience of education has always been diverse. He attended elementary school in Southern Iran and finished high school with A-levels in London. In education strategy, he worked for both private investors valuing profit and development organizations focused on impact.

Mohammadmehdi is excited to combine these experiences in the US, studying public policy through Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. In particular, he hopes to support lifelong learning solutions to ensure that future workforces can continuously re-skill in the face of the challenges posed by automation. The workforces most at-risk of automation are also those in less economically developed nations, such as in his home region of the Middle East where he hopes to one day return to work. To this end, Mohammadmehdi will be specializing in international development, data analytics and Arabic.

As a member of the global Fulbright network, Mohammadmehdi is excited to learn from my peers and for this two-way learning to be a lifelong endeavor beginning with my two years in New York City. During this time, he also hopes to continue my film photography and document the diverse communities around the city’s famous five boroughs.

Alice Simm

Fulbright Postgraduate Award - LLM Law at Indiana University

Alice graduated with a degree in Law from the University of Liverpool. After taking part in an expedition to India in 2018 and volunteering in the slums in Chennai, Alice became aware of different traumas and human rights violations that many people suffer from. This experience opened her eyes to the violations of fundamental human rights that are taking place all over the world. From this, Alice decided to pursue a degree in Law, in the hope of becoming an advocate for international human rights.

During her time in the United States, Alice hopes to give back to the community, by taking part in pro bono schemes. She wants to widen her experiences and knowledge in human rights law through academic and practical work, with the aim of returning to the UK to train as a qualified solicitor. Once qualified, she plans to travel to countries where extreme human rights violations take place, to educate people on their international rights.

Mia Testa

All Disciplines Award - Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Literature at Stony Brook University

Born and raised on the Isle of Wight, Mia’s early experiences living in a low income household and attending failing schools have made her passionate about the accessibility of the arts and education as a tool for social mobility. She went on to attend the University of Oxford on a Crankstart Scholarship, and graduated with a degree in English Language and Literature in 2020. Her time there is what has fuelled her desire to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing and tell stories about the intricacies of class, wealth, gender, and the intersection of all three.

At Stony Brook University, Mia looks forward to refining her craft alongside similarly minded writers, sharing her passion for educational accessibility through teaching and outreach work, exploring the New York and New England areas through food, architecture, music, and history, and sharing her experiences on her YouTube channel.

Carmen Villa

All Disciplines Award - Visiting Student researcher in Public Policy at the University of Chicago

Carmen is a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Warwick. Her work leverages economic modelling and data to understand more about gentrification, wage inequality, public housing, and crime in London. 

Carmen was born in Spain and holds a BA from University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain) and an MA from the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium). She moved to London after completing her studies, and she has been researching spatial inequality in the UK since 2017. She is excited to keep learning from some of the World’s leading researchers at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, where she will spend 6 months as a non-degree visiting student. 

An avid music lover, Carmen plays the guitar in her free time and looks forward to exploring the music scene in Chicago. During her stay in the U.S she would like to visit Nashville, and California.

Hayden Godfrey

All Disciplines Visiting Student Researcher at Harvard University

Hayden is an Oxford University Postgraduate researcher with the highest honours in an MSc Research Design and Methodology (Education) publishing in areas such as Intellectual Humility and Argumentation in Higher Education/Science Education, the impact of Covid-19 on Law Undergraduate Provision at Oxford University, and novel mixed-methods approaches in educational research. Hayden has also chaired and moderated conferences on the epistemic practices and beliefs of students.

As a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard School of Education, Hayden will explore how Science and Higher Education can respond to the vast misinformation in society (for example, concerning vaccines and pandemics). Hayden will also explore how education can be reformed for fulfilment and contentment with societies ever increasing lifespans, and how members of society can find meaning and purpose outside of identifying solely with their careers or achievements.

Antonella Bancalari

Fulbright-Royal Society of Edinburgh Award - Yale University

Antonella Bancalari graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2020 with a PhD in Social Policy and a MPA in International Development. Antonella’s journey started in Lima, Peru, where she obtained a BSc in Economics from Universidad del Pacifico and worked as a public sector consultant. As a first-hand witness of the barriers to development, her purpose is to help eradicating global poverty. Pursuing this aim, she worked at the Inter-American Development Bank (Washington D.C.) and the Institute for Fiscal Studies (London) in several projects in Latin America and South-East Asia. 

As a Fulbright Visiting Scholar, Antonella will be joining a renowned group of Development Economists based at Yale’s Economic Growth Centre. Her research seeks to understand the principles underlying effective public service delivery in low- and middle-income countries. Back home, Antonella is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the School of Economics and Finance of the University of St Andrews (Scotland), where she teaches Development and Health Economics to more than 100 postgraduate and undergraduate students from all over the world. The Fulbright will give her the opportunity to share her research and field-work experience internationally and learn how leading academics promote evidence-based policymaking globally. As an animal lover, Antonella hopes to meet “Handsome Dan”, Yale University’s famous mascot, and volunteer at the Yale’s Animal Welfare Alliance!

Anna Bidgood

Fulbright-All Disciplines Scholar - Carnegie Institution for Science, Geoscience and Technology Metals

Anna developed a fascination with remote wilderness landscapes and indigenous communities as a teenager and has spent a great deal of time on both mountaineering and research expeditions as she trained to be a geologist.  Anna is a geoscientist with interests in sustainably-sourced technology metals which are critical for the production of low carbon technologies needed to help decarbonise our society.  

Anna graduated from the University of Oxford in 2020 with a PhD in geology before moving to the SFI Research Centre in Applied Geosciences (iCRAG), where she enjoys working at the interface between academia and industry in a changing society and is passionate about metal extraction being accomplished in an environmental and sustainable way.  

Anna will spend time at the Carnegie Institute for Science in Washington DC where she will be conducting experimental research to determine how the technology metals cobalt and nickel are mobilised and concentrated to aid predictions as to where these metals might be found in nature. Anna is looking forward to visiting the museums around Washington DC, as well as many of the national parks and geological sites in the US, where she hopes to immerse herself through long-distance hikes and biking.

Igor Calzada

Fulbright Scholar-In-Residence (S-I-R) Award, California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB) – Institute for Basque Studies

Dr Igor Calzada MBA is a Principal Research Fellow / Reader at Cardiff University, WISERD (Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data) and SPARK (Social Science Research Park). His research aims to intersect digital, urban, and political transformations, particularly focusing on digital citizenship, digital rights, data co-operatives, and rescaling nation-states. He has been recently nominated among 100 Most Influential Academics in Government by Apolitical and has published two monographs ‘Emerging Digital Citizenship Regimes: Postpandemic Technopolitical Democracies’ (Emerald, 2022) and ‘Smart City Citizenship’ (Elsevier, 2021).

Dr Calzada's Fulbright teaching, engagement, and research activities will focus on Digitalisation/Datafication as Emerging Digital Citizenship Regimes in Postpandemic Urban Realms. He is really looking forward to actively design the new curriculum of the Institute for Basque Studies, by setting up international networks, meeting key players in California, and resulting in a three-way MoU between Wales, Cardiff University (UK), Basque Country, Basque Government – Presidency, General Secretary of External Affairs (Spain), and CSUB – IBS (USA) through the action research project www.hanhemen.eus on digital citizenship and e-diaspora. He hopes his work can contribute understanding and entrepreneurial networks between Wales, Basque Country, and California, and most importantly, bringing positive change in social, institutional, academic, and diasporic communities overall.

Jennifer Mallon

Fulbright-All Disciplines Scholar - Nova Southeastern University and Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium

Jennifer completed her doctoral studies in marine biogeochemistry of coral reefs at the University of Glasgow, Scotland in collaboration with the Coralium Laboratory of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Her research focuses on corals and algae which grow carbonate skeletons in a process known as calcification to build and maintain the coral reef structure. Some coral reef structures protect hundreds of millions of people worldwide, by creating a barrier between coastal communities and the open ocean. As storm frequency and intensity increase due to the climate crisis, this is a critical ecosystem service.  

Her Fulbright project will focus on measuring calcification rates to support reef restoration efforts in the Florida Keys. She is looking forward to spending 12-months at Mote International Center for Coral Reef Restoration and Research in the Florida Keys working under the supervision of Dr Emily Hall, Mote, and Dr Tyler Cyronak, Nova Southeastern University. Their research aims to develop a cost-effective method to monitor reef health using biogeochemical measurements of calcification to track reef growth and function, they will test this method to determine if calcification measured from changes in seawater chemistry can be used to monitor reef health, track conservation success, and identify reefs at risk.

Aidan McGarry

Fulbright All Disciplines Scholar - University of Southern California

Aidan completed all his formal higher education at Queen’s University, Belfast, gaining his PhD in 2007. HIs research focuses on how marginalised groups around the world find and express their demands, this includes Roma communities in eastern Europe and LGBTIQ activists in India. He led a AHRC project on urban protest movements in Turkey from 2016-2018. In the past, Aidan has been a visiting scholar at Columbia University, New York, the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence and the European Centre for Minority Issues in Germany. He was awarded a EURIAS Fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in Amsterdam in 2018-2019. He became a Professor in 2021 and is the Associate Dean of Research in his school.  

During his Fulbright Fellowship, he will explore the intersection of environmental activism, digital media and visual culture. California houses strong environmental groups; Aidan will use the case of California wildfires to assess how activists use the power of images on social media to change attitudes, raise awareness and challenge opponents regarding the climate crisis. Whilst he will miss London, Aidan will try his best to enjoy the California sunshine and landscape....whilst in LA he relishes the chance to experience full cultural immersion. As a food fanatic he looks forward to trying out the incredible food truck scene in LA and hopes to fulfil a lifelong dream to drive a convertible Mustang from LA to San Francisco along the Pacific Coast Highway and visit Big Sur.

Riccardo Mogre

Fulbright-Lloyd’s Scholar - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Riccardo is an Associate Professor at Durham University Business School and a Fellow of the Durham Energy Institute. 

As a Fulbright Scholar, Riccardo will spend six months at the MIT Operations Research Center and the Sloan School of Management. He will collaborate with Prof. Trichakis to develop mathematical models for the management of risky projects, with a focus on offshore wind.  Large projects are prone to delays because of complexity, supply issues, and external risks. His Fulbright work will investigate mitigation strategies, like dynamic control, to keep projects on track.  At MIT he will also explore approaches to research leadership, teaching, and student life.

Omar Musbahi

Fulbright-Royal College of Surgeons of England - Harvard University

Omar Musbahi was a structural engineer prior to graduating from Barts and The London and the University of Oxford with medical and science degrees.  

He is currently an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow and Specialist Registrar in Trauma & Orthopaedics at Imperial College London combining surgical training with research interests in improving musculoskeletal patient outcomes. He has interests in data and engineering. During his time in surgical training, he developed an interest in improving the inefficiencies in healthcare services. 

As a Fulbright Royal College of Surgeons Scholar, Omar will spend time at Brigham & Women’s Hospital as part of Harvard Medical School to further understand the way routinely collected healthcare data is used to improve musculoskeletal patient pathways. In particular, he will focus on addressing the success of the US elective orthopaedic day surgery pathways and hopes to use this information to further improve NHS orthopaedic services.

Catherine Russell

Fulbright-Lloyd’s Scholar - The University of New Orleans (2022-23)

Catherine Russell completed her PhD in fluvial sedimentology at the University of Leeds in 2017 and went on to lecture in sedimentology and Earth surface processes at the University of Leicester, whilst also affiliated with Louisiana State University. Catherine is a geologist who is interested in human impacts on rivers and their landscapes, including plastic pollution. On experiencing the Louisianan human-modified Mississippi River landscape in 2019, Catherine began adapting traditional geological techniques to modern environments as well as investigating how plastic behaves as a sedimentary particle. In 2020, she established the Anthropocene Sediment Network, which aims to holistically combine human, social, and physical elements of a landscape to aid communication, networking, and learning between communities.

As a Fulbright-Lloyd’s Visiting Scholar at the University of New Orleans, Catherine seeks to learn the deeper impacts of the human-modified landscape on day-to-day living in New Orleans. The key focus of her research will be investigating the novelties of Anthropocene rivers when compared to natural systems, and particularly the consequences of our activities on reservoir water quality. The Fulbright Scholarship will give her the opportunity to build bridges and new connections in her research, as well as to undertake fieldwork in a new environment. The learnings from this research will allow for deeper understanding of the long-term effects of human impact on surface processes across Earth Systems in the Anthropocene.

Benjamin Smith

Fulbright All-Disciplines Scholar - University of California, San Diego

Benjamin is a professor of Latin American History at the University of Warwick, specialising in the grassroots political history of Mexico and has published four monographs  four edited collection and dozens of academic articles over the past 16 years. Though he has worked on issues as diverse as market women, social movements, Catholicism, conservatism, journalism, censorship and the press, his recent work has focused on issues of drugs and violence in twentieth century Mexico. His most recent book, 'The Dope: The History of the Mexican Drug Trade', was published by WW Norton in 2021.  

In addition to Benjamin's academic work, he provides expert testimonies for Mexicans fleeing criminal, political, religious and ethnic violence south of the border.

Ade Solanke

Fulbright-All Disciplines Scholar - Emerson College

Ade Solanke is an award-winning British-Nigerian playwright, screenwriter, and academic. She is the artistic director of Spora Stories, creating plays and films about the African diaspora. She has a BA Hons in English Literature from the University of Sheffield and received their Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016. She also hs an MFA in Film from the University of Southern California where she was a Fulbright Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa International Scholar, and Association of American Women Scholar. Her acclaimed debut play, 'Pandora's Box',  won a Best New Play nomination in the Off West End Theatre Awards and was shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature, Africa’s biggest literary award.

Her latest play, The Court Must Have a Queen, premiered at Hampton Court Palace. A former journalist, Ade has written for The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement, The Voice and BBC Radio 4. With literature, theatre and film colleagues at Emerson, she will research and develop dramatic material for Phillis in London, her project exploring Phillis Wheatley, the African-American enslaved teenage prodigy who in 1773 published the first book in English by an African. In her free time, Ade is a keen walker and plans to sample the best of  New England's 'leaf-peeping'.

Kim Starr

Fulbright-Smithsonian Institutions Scholar - Smithsonian

Kim’s academic career got off to a rocky start when (aged 4) her teacher described her as a ‘chatterbox’. Deciding to make a virtue out of a necessity, Kim pinned her career colours to the communications mast, winding up in the broadcast television industry. However, academia beckoned several times over the years: for a Bachelor’s degree in politics and law (QMUL), MAs in journalism (Westminster) and audiovisual translation (Surrey) and finally, for the pursuit of a PhD in audiovisual translation/accessible language (Surrey). The latter stages of this academic journey were initiated after a family member was diagnosed with autism, and Kim found herself exploring ways to help children with additional cognitive needs access film and television content. Ultimately, this became the focus of her nationally-funded PhD research, where she trialed audio description to prompt emotion cues in film content for autistic children. 

Kim is excited to be partnering with the Smithsonian Institution to explore the language of museum interpretation, focussing on people with additional cognitive needs. As an avid musical theatre fan, she hopes to pay an early visit to the Ozian ruby slippers at the National Museum of American History, and visit accessible theatre projects in DC.

Joanie Willett

Fulbright-All Disciplines Scholar - Virginia Tech

Joanie is a senior lecturer in politics with the University of Exeter where her teaching and research explores place-making, and place-shaping. Focussing on the inter-relationship between identity, communities, and the environment, Joanie uses political philosophy to provide new ways of looking at the world to improve economic development and governance by making it more responsive to civil society. 

In particular, she examines questions around the economic development of peripheral regions, most recently finding that development priorities need to grow from the region, its people, and identities.  Whilst visiting Virginia Tech, Joanie will be considering the question of how our spatial, geological and climatic environments shape the economies, societies and politics of a place.  This builds on her recent book Affective Assemblages and Local Economies where she drew on research from the Southwest of Virginia.  Joanie has contributed to numerous UK Parliamentary enquiries and reports including the recent Environmental Audit Committee’s Green Jobs report, and has presented her work in the European Parliament and Committee of the Regions. She is a co-director of the Institute of Cornish Studies, a former trustee of the Political Studies Association,  and is a co-convenor of the PSA Local Politics specialist group. She has a strong media profile and have most recently been a panellist on a BBC Radio 4.

Keith Corprew

Fulbright-Trinity Laban Postgraduate Award in Dance

Keith Corprew-Asberry, “Keith Alexander”, born in Chesapeake, Virginia, graduated from Morehouse College in 2017 with his BA in Philosophy and a minor in French Studies. During his time at Morehouse, he was a member of the Honors Program and various performing arts organizations across the Atlanta University Center, such as the “House of Funk” Marching Band and Spelman Dance Theater.

In 2020, he received his Master of Theological Studies with a certificate in Black Church Studies from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. He was the 2020 recipient of the Fellowship Seminarian Award at Candler for outstanding leadership in worship and arts and was recognized as an outstanding graduate for the School of Theology by Emory University. For the past 5 years, Keith has worked as an administrator with Morehouse College’s Howard Thurman Honors Program. There he has built programs that use literature and digital media to engage students in year-round discussions of various themes concerning Black culture and life. As a Fulbright Scholar, Keith will pursue an MFA in Creative Practice: Transdisciplinary at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. His proposed project is a dance film that explores the impact of racial identity and masculinity on Black men’s sense of belonging to self, space/place, and community, with special attention given to the experiences of Black men in the UK. Upon completing his MFA, Keith plans to continue a career in higher education and the arts creating spaces and works for cross-cultural conversations and to uplift the voice and experiences of the Black community across the world.

Linnea Bacon

Fulbright-University of Stirling Postgraduate Award in Health, Wellbeing and Sport

Linnea Bacon, of Columbia, SC, graduated from Clemson University in 2019 with a B.S. in Psychology and B.A. in Sports Communication.

Growing up in a family dedicated to sports, Linnea developed a passion for sports at a young age, with a specific interest in the intersection of psychology and sport. While at Clemson, Linnea’s honors thesis examined mental health and social support among high school and collegiate athletes with head injuries. After finishing her studies, she conducted research at the University of Michigan examining substance abuse and mental illness in young adults.

While at Stirling, Linnea will pursue a MSc in Psychology of Sport and conduct research that focuses on athlete mental health and wellbeing. With the knowledge gained from her Fulbright experience, she hopes to improve athlete mental healthcare by better understanding how culture influences approaches and access to mental health treatment for athletes. In her free time, Linnea hopes to attend football games, indulge in the local cuisine, and explore the Scottish highlands.

Katelyn Barnes

Fulbright-Queen's University Belfast Postgraduate Award in Global Security and Borders

Katelyn graduated from the University of Dayton with a B.A. in Human Rights Studies and Sociology. She became involved with research early as an undergraduate, finding ways to ask curious questions about gender in each project, including those with her campus’s Women’s Center, Human Rights Center, and Psychology department.

During her undergraduate career, she worked with an advocacy organization in Washington D.C. as a policy intern, where she focused on promoting the passage of legislation advancing global gender equality to congressional representatives. At Queen’s, in the spirit of her interest in studying gender and advocating for women and girls, Katelyn plans to study the effects of Brexit and border legislation on women and girls in Northern Ireland. She sees education and research as a form of advocacy and hopes to become a professor specializing in women and security studies after her education. Her goal is to continue engaging in research and advocacy in a multitude of ways beyond her career, and to work with organizations like the United States Institute of Peace and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. In Belfast, Katelyn looks forward to exploring the city’s museums, seeing the peace walls, enjoying live music, and learning about the city’s history through the stories of those she meets.

Rachel Bechtel

Fulbright-University of Kent Postgraduate Award – Master of Arts in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities at the University of Kent

Rachel is originally from Moscow, Idaho, where she was introduced to disability culture at a young age through her friends and family. During high school, she became involved in disability justice advocacy and activism after witnessing disability-based discrimination. These experiences motivated her to study psychology at Carroll College in Helena, Montana, and conduct research on disability-based wage discrimination.

During this time, she advocated for accessibility and disability justice on campus and in her community. Following her undergraduate graduation, she promoted disability justice at a state and national level as an advocate at Disability Rights Montana. To expand her understanding of direct support services, she is currently living and working as a direct support professional in a L’Arche cooperative living community for adults with and without intellectual disabilities in Portland, Oregon. During the duration of her Fulbright grant, Rachel will pursue a Master of Arts in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. She will continue to live and build relationships in a local L’Arche community while researching how increased contact with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, facilitated through community care, affects perceptions of intellectual and developmental disability. She is excited to experience supported living within the context of the United Kingdom and study the societal effects of deinstitutionalization.

Matthew Bovee

Fulbright-John Wood LAMDA Postgraduate Award - William Shakespeare and the X-Men Walk Into a Bar

Matt is a performer and creator living in Brooklyn. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, he now creates work in New York as an actor, dancer, musician, composer, choreographer, movement director, filmmaker, and teaching artist. With much gratitude to the Fulbright Commission, he will be attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in their Masters in Classical Acting for the Professional Theater program in 2022-2023.

Kavin Chada

Fulbright-University of St. Andrews Postgraduate Award in Arts & Humanities – Philosophy: Kantian Buddhism

On a high school summer program in the UK, Kavin Chada—an Italian/Indian born and raised in New York City—found his way into philosophy and Buddhist practice. These became the focus of his undergraduate studies at Columbia University, along with his interest in languages. During his time at Columbia, Kavin studied under distinguished scholars of Kant, and began to see parallels between Kantian and Buddhist thought. This led to his main philosophical project since then: a synthesis of Kantian philosophy and modern Buddhist practice, aimed at providing the foundation of a secular Buddhist understanding of ethics and transforming Western religious practice.

In addition to being a philosopher and writer, he is a dedicated (yet humbly-skilled) jazz musician, playing the trumpet and recording many of his own compositions. He is also a climber who enjoys bouldering.

While at the University of St Andrews, Kavin will continue his study of philosophy, specializing in Kant’s moral philosophy. He also looks forward to finding musician and climbing friends, as well as fellow Buddhist practitioners in the UK.

Alexandra Chand

Fulbright-University of Leeds Postgraduate Award – M.A in English Literature

Alex Chand is a writer from California, Kentucky, and Texas. In 2022, Chand graduated from Lawrence University with a bachelor’s degree in physics and English.

At Lawrence, Chand wrote a hybrid critical-creative manuscript illuminating how autistic voices inhabit contemporary poetry and other texts, earning summa cum laude honours for her work. While at the University of Leeds, Chand will pursue an M.A. in English Literature. Her master’s thesis will continue to build on an existing discourse of autism poetics with an intersectional lens, focusing on representations of autistic voices of colour situated within a global landscape. She is eager to engage with other scholars working at the intersection of disability studies and literature at Leeds. Upon returning to the States, Alex will pursue an M.F.A. in creative writing at the University of Mississippi, where she plans to continue building on her master’s thesis.

In addition to her work in English literature and creative writing, Chand founded and chaired the Lawrence University Disability Working Group, where she helped foster ongoing collaboration between students and the university to effect change. She initiated the creation of a introductory disability studies course and helped establish a permanent committee to address disability and accessibility within student government. Chand looks forward to continuing work in disability advocacy while in Leeds through the Leeds Disabled People’s Organisation. An athlete competing in cross country, track, and swimming, Alex is excited to participate in triathlon as well.

William Christmann

Fulbright-University of Roehampton Postgraduate Award in Dance

Will Christman graduated Summa Cum Laude from Skidmore College in 2021 with degrees in English and Sociology and a minor in dance. His areas of academic interest include gender theory, queer theory, and public health. Outside of his academics, will was an active leader of the Peer Health Education program, where he developed a passion for harm reduction and compassionate care.

While studying at the University of Roehampton, Will looks forward to continuing his undergraduate research on the gender binary's impact on the world of concert dance, while specifically highlighting the lived experiences of gender-diverse contemporary ballet dancers. Will is thrilled to explore the London dance scene, connect with its artists, and hear their stories.

At home, Will is currently working in harm reduction as an Overdose Aftercare and Outreach specialist. He hopes to find similar volunteer experiences while studying abroad.

Gretchen Coleman

Fulbright-University of Manchester Postgraduate Award - MA in Political Science - Democracy and Elections

Gretchen Coleman grew up in Palatine, Illinois and studied political science and political philosophy at Syracuse University.

Through working on campaigns and in government throughout her undergraduate career, Gretchen discovered her passion for voting rights. In early 2020, she started a youth voting initiative to make information about elections more accessible for Generation Z voters in Illinois. For her Honors thesis, she pursued research on young people’s trust in the electoral process, and she has worked with Vote Early Day in Washington, D.C. to promote a national celebration around early voting.

Gretchen is grateful for the opportunity to study in the United Kingdom to gain a comparative perspective on democratic processes. She will pursue an MA in Political Science on the Democracy & Elections track at the University of Manchester, where she aims to pursue research comparing voter identification policies between the United States and the United Kingdom.

Gretchen’s ultimate goal is to fight for a stronger, more representative democracy by advocating for electoral reform in the United States. Through her time in the United Kingdom, she plans to build connections with advocates in the United Kingdom to promote long-term collaboration between the two countries.

Chloe Connor

Fulbright-University of Southampton Postgraduate Award - MSc in Public Health

Chloe is a 2022 graduate from The Pennsylvania State University with a BS in Psychology, honors in Biobehavioral Health, and minors in Biology, Global Health, and Bioethics and Medical Humanities.

At the University of Southampton, Chloe will be pursuing a Master of Science in Public Health. Following the completion of her master’s program, Chloe will attend Harvard Law School where she plans to focus on public health law. Chloe’s interest in public health was confirmed during a summer study abroad in Tanzania and Kenya where her group focused on reproductive health. Chloe’s interest was further solidified when she worked as a contact tracer during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. This past summer, Chloe studied abroad in Oaxaca, Mexico where she shadowed healthcare providers and studied the social determinants of health. Chloe is thrilled to be moving to the vibrant city of Southampton and hopes to join University of Southampton’s Athletics and Cross-Country Club, as she ran on Penn State’s Club Cross Country Team for four years. Chloe believes her time in Southampton will be instrumental in expanding her perspective and understanding of public health. Chloe grew up in Yardley, Pennsylvania and has a twin brother as well as two younger brothers who are also twins.

Cesar Cortorreal

Fulbright-UCL Institute of Education Postgraduate Award

Cesar (CJ) Cortorreal is from North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and has a passion for education, college access, and youth development. He graduated from Franklin & Marshall College'20 with his Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Anthropology. He will soon be graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's in Special Education. He enjoys spending quality time with people, socializing, playing games, enjoying food, and most recently, playing the ukulele, and working on his educational blog and journey - @cesing.the.moment.

He is C.E.S.A.R: cultivating his students, educating his students, succeeding alongside his students, appreciating his students, and revolutionizing the education system.

Catherine Devlin

Fulbright-University of Glasgow Postgraduate Award – MSc in Gender History

Catherine Devlin graduated summa cum laude from Boston University in May 2022 with a BA in history. Her passion for telling overlooked stories and drawing out historical personalities motivates her research, with her articles and conference presentations ranging from pre-Civil War Boston to modern day African female activists. In line with this interest, she worked as the lead researcher and associate producer on the 2020 Academy Award qualifying film Sky Blossom, which profiled the often forgotten group of child and millennial caregivers. Her honors undergraduate thesis used the story of a forgotten female peace activist to interrogate the disciplines of gender history and biography. She will continue this line of inquiry through her Fulbright program, where she will pursue an MSc in gender history at the University of Glasgow.

Devin Diggs

Fulbright-University of York Postgraduate Award

Devin Diggs graduated as valedictorian of the University of Notre Dame in 2022 with a B.S. in Neuroscience and Behavior and minor in Education, Schooling, and Society.

Devin spent the summer of 2019 in Accra, Ghana researching barriers to healthcare for children with cerebral palsy with the Center for Learning and Childhood Development. This sparked his interest in promoting healthy brain development which he further explored through the Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program at Harvard Medical School’s McLean Hospital in 2020. His research focused on the structural changes and increased risk of mental health problems due to childhood adversity.

Motivated to mitigate the negative consequences of childhood maltreatment and learn from national leaders of behavioral health, Devin worked for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration the summer following his graduation. At the University of York, Devin will study the intersection of his interests through the MSc in Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education program, focusing on school-based interventions to promote children’s mental health.

Teja Dusanapudi

Fulbright-Manchester Metropolitan University Postgraduate Award in Creative Writing

Teja Dusanapudi's Fulbright project will be a work of speculative fiction set in Manchester, depicting the ramifications of contemporary debates around climate and immigration. This project will draw from archival and interpersonal resources to accurately reflect Manchester's cultural and material future.

Supporting Teja are his varied experiences in writing at the University of California Davis. Having worked as a journalism fellow with the university's communications department as well as conducting academic research in the environmental humanities, Teja's overarching focus is engaging real world issues through narrative.

As a postgraduate scholar studying at Manchester Metropolitan University, Teja will engage with various research clusters focusing on topics ranging from diasporic communities in Manchester to histories of urban place and space. These resources, in tandem with the university's focused curriculum on creative literature, will provide texture and detail to Teja's Fulbright project. In his free time, Teja enjoys tennis and movies, and hopes to one day attend the Cannes film festival.

Judith Forunova-Russel

Fulbright-Loughborough University Postgraduate Award - US, UK, and EU multilateral relations: a humanitarian framework for climate migration

Judith Fortunova-Russell is a Bulgarian-American multi-lingual journalist from Washington D.C. In 2021, she graduated with a dual-M.A. in Journalism, Media, and Globalization from the European Union's Erasmus Mundus Journalism Program. Through this program, she studied at the Danish School of Media and Aarhus University in Denmark and the University of Hamburg in Germany. In 2018, she also received a B.S. in Journalism, with two minors in French language & literature and International Studies from St. John's University, as well as a certificate in United Nations Studies from Columbia University.

Driven by the implicating relationship between cross-cultural media, foreign policy, and human rights, Judith has closely examined these subjects in her research focusing on migration, statelessness, and refugee issues. Her projects include examining the European Union’s public policy and social integration efforts of the Romani populations, the social consequences of xenophobic language in the reporting on Turkey’s President Erdogan’s border threats, and a qualitative interview analysis on South African documentary filmmakers' overcoming xenophobic violence.

While at Loughborough University, she will be pursuing a PhD In Politics, History, and International Relations, and will be focusing on developing a multilateral foreign policy framework towards climate change induced migration.

Samantha Fountain

Fulbright-University of Nottingham Postgraduate Award

Born and raised in Chicagoland, Samantha became interested in healthcare and began engaging in teaching roles from a young age. She proceeded to develop these interests at Cornell University, graduating in three years with a Bachelor of Science with High Distinction in Human Biology, Health & Society with a minor in Education. At Cornell, Samantha ran educational intervention programs for general chemistry, taught adult ESL learners, and founded a medical vitals training program for students to serve local soup kitchen patrons. Samantha also engaged in bariatric surgery research and chemistry education research as an undergraduate. Additionally, while working on the ambulance as an Advanced Emergency Medical Technician, Samantha completed multiple Emergency Medical Services teaching certifications to learn how to support premedical students in uncertain clinical environments.

Post-graduation, Samantha continued working as an Advanced Emergency Medical Technician and taught an accelerated Emergency Medical Technician Basic course near Cornell University. To improve her skills as a medical educator, Samantha will study Medical Education at the University of Nottingham. She is excited to build on her current teaching praxis to better understand andragogy within a medical context. She also looks forward to shadowing in the UK and learning more about the National Health Service, with the overarching goal of building more holistic and internationally exchangeable medical curricula.  Samantha hopes to pursue a career in medical education as a physician, committed to teaching and supporting the next generation of healthcare providers.

Sarah Glaser

Fulbright-Royal Holloway, University of London Postgraduate Award - MSc in Elections, Campaigns and Democracy

Sarah graduated from the University of South Florida’s Honors College with a BA in Political Science and a BS in Public Health. She has served as a legislative intern in both the Florida State House of Representatives and the U.S. House of Representatives.

Sarah founded and chaired Florida Students for Biden, the Florida youth outreach branch of the 2020 Biden presidential campaign and was a member of the campaign's National Youth Advisory Committee. For her work in public affairs, she was named a 2021 Public Service Scholar by the national Phi Beta Kappa organization. Sarah’s passion for U.S. - UK foreign relations stemmed from her study abroad with the USF Honors College in London in 2019, where she studied the U.S.-UK Special Relationship and British national identity, and was awarded USF in London’s Academic Excellence Award. In the fall of 2021, Sarah put her knowledge to work through a travel grant with USF's Honors College. During her grant, she served as a political intern for Brevia Consulting, a London based public affairs consulting firm, analyzing debate in Parliament. During her Fulbright at Royal Holloway, Sarah will study campaigns, elections, and democracy, focusing on comparative democratic electoral systems. She hopes to contribute to innovative approaches and reforms to campaign policy to strengthen both developed and developing democratic institutions.

John Glover

Fulbright-Cardiff University Postgraduate Award – History - Diversity and British Labor: The History of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners

John, originally from Nashville, Tennessee, received his BA in History from Tulane University in 2021 and is passionate about historical research and writing. He has researched and written about topics ranging from how disproportionate access to medical amenities has shaped Louisiana history to foreign policy controversies in the Vietnam War-era United States Congress.

His Honors Thesis profiled some of the principal dissident political leaders of the Great Depression-era U.S., analyzing the interplay between the American Marxist and Populist traditions. John is excited to parlay his experience into an exploration of analogous tendencies in British and Welsh history. He looks forward to pursuing his MA in History at Cardiff University. While a Tulane student living in New Orleans, Louisiana, John became active in mental-health community organizing efforts on campus and in the city of New Orleans. He participated in the formation of the Tulane Collegiate Recovery Community and a recovery community situated in the city’s 8th Ward neighborhood. John looks forward to participating in and learning from mental-health recovery groups in Cardiff. He is ecstatic at the prospect of experiencing life in Wales from the countryside’s famous walking trails to the vibrant cultural scene in Cardiff’s music venues. 

Darius Graham

Fulbright-Imperial College London Postgraduate Award - Public Health

Darius Graham, born in New York City, New York, graduated from Haverford College with a B.A. in Anthropology and minor in Health Studies will pursue his master’s in public health at Imperial College London, whose mission to benefit society through excellence in science, engineering, medicine, and business aligns with Graham’s academic passions.

At Haverford, he researched “structural competence”—a framework in health professional education that aims for providers to understand how clinical problems and attitudes towards populations and health systems are influenced by social determinants of health—and how that framework could better address health inequities experienced by patients of color. His senior thesis included observational research conducted while working as a medical scribe, analyzing doctor-patient interactions for examples of structural issues in the healthcare system. As a part of his graduate studies, he hopes to continue and broaden this research.

Neely Griggs

Fulbright-University of Reading Postgraduate Award in Food Security - Master of Science in Food Security and Development

A native of rural Mississippi, Neely has always been passionate about food. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Neely found herself leaving her office job to work on a small-scale, certified naturally grown farm in Oxford, Mississippi, and here, she began to understand the food system like never before. Graduating in May 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in German and Public Policy Leadership and a Bachelor of Business Administration in General Business, Neely’s interdisciplinary interest in public health, food policy, and non-profit management led her to serve as an AmeriCorps VISTA member at Wingate University in North Carolina. In this role, she has worked alongside community leaders to build capacity with the newly formed Food Council of Union County and coordinate the operations expansion of the Wingate Community Garden, including the addition of accessible beds and a native pollinator garden. 

Madeleine Henderson

Fulbright-University of Exeter Postgraduate Award - Circular Economy in Medical Devices

While earning her BS in Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University (2020) and working in the medical device industry, Madeleine noticed the incongruity between the mission and execution of healthcare. While improving our health and lives, the healthcare system is emitting carbon and creating plastic waste, contributing actively to the pollution and climate change that hurt health and lives. 

She realised there was a need at the intersection of her technical engineering skills and environmentalism to create a more sustainable healthcare system. While in university, Madeleine worked with the Purdue Student Sustainability Council to create a food waste diversion program; while working in product development at a multinational medical technology company, she co-founded an employee global environmental action group.  In this new field, the UK's National Health System was the first to commit to net zero carbon emissions, making it the perfect location to continue her studies.  

At Exeter, Madeleine will study sustainable systems change to augment her engineering skills. She plans to work with the local NHS hospital to study the environmental and patient care impacts of reusable medical devices. She is also looking forward to exploring the surrounding nature, finding her favorite pub, and joining the university club equestrian team. 

Alice Heyeh

Fulbright-Northumbria University Postgraduate Award - M.A. in Communication Design

Alice Heyeh is from Chappaqua, NY and graduated from University of Pennsylvania in 2021 with a B.A. in Communication and minors in Consumer Psychology and Design. At Penn, she was the Arts Editor for 34th Street Magazine and a member of the Asian American Studies Undergraduate Advisory Board. She has taken courses in interface design, digital inequalities, and technology in the Global South.

Through her coursework, Alice became interested in the intersection of artificial intelligence and service design. At Northumbria University, Alice will obtain a M.A. in Communication Design to further her research in technological solutions to algorithmic bias. In doing so, Alice hopes to design products that are accessible, fair, and intuitive. In Newcastle Upon Tyne, she looks forward to exploring contemporary art museums and watching student fashion shows!

Kristina Hughes

Fulbright-University of Warwick Postgraduate Award - Humanitarian Engineering Program

Kristina Hughes, a native of State College, Pennsylvania, will graduate from the United States Military Academy in 2022 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. Her desire to solve humanitarian crises with engineering solutions led to her three undergraduate publications in helicopter hoist stabilization and orbital debris modelling mathematical estimation.

With her research, she has been able to address the problems plaguing aeromedical evacuations and data collection from satellites tracking changes in climate patterns. With her studies in Mechanical Engineering, she is working to apply methods of controls and modeling to improving energy and infrastructural development following humanitarian crises.

Through the Fulbright Scholarship, Kristina will pursue a degree in Humanitarian Engineering with Sustainability at the University of Warwick and further develop ways to provide stability to disaster-ridden areas and populations. In her future Army career, Kristina hopes to combine her engineering expertise with her desire to serve disadvantaged populations by bridging the gap between military assistance and humanitarian aid.   

Salamata Jalloh

Fulbright-University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Award

Salamata Jalloh’s earliest memories are from her time growing up in Guinea, a country in West Africa. Although much of what she remembers are fragmented images and the sounds of her native language of Pularr, they serve as a reminder of where her passion for African Studies began.

Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Salamata Jalloh graduated Magna Cum Laude from Washington College with a degree in Political Science and minors in both Peace and Conflict and Religion. In college, Salamata focused on courses relating to international development and African politics, and wrote a thesis titled, “Coups D’etats: The Substitution of Democracy” where she explored public opinion on the outcomes of coups d’etat in Guinea and Mali.

While in college she had an amazing experience interning at the Georgetown Law School’s Criminal Justice and Juvenile Justice Clinic where she worked closely with attorneys. Salamata hopes to combine her interest in African Studies and law, and work as an international human rights lawyer; she hopes to fight for human rights especially in West Africa. As a Fulbright recipient, Salamata plans to receive a master’s degree in Africa and International Development from the University of Edinburgh, to further expand her understanding of political instability and coups d’etat in West Africa. After Fulbright, Salamata hopes to become a Peace Corps volunteer in her home country of Guinea, after which she will attend law school.

Reyanna James

Fulbright-SOAS, University of London Postgraduate Award

Reyanna graduated from Yale University in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in Economics & Mathematics. During her time at Yale, she developed an interest in studying how power relations such as gender, race, and coloniality impact economic trajectories.

In particular, she is interested in the ways these power relations impact the nature of work; what and who do traditional conceptualizations of labor leave out? Passionate about highlighting the experiences of Black women in shaping economic policy, Reyanna is also a fellow at the Sadie Collective, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing opportunities for Black women in economics.

As a Fulbrighter, Reyanna will be pursuing a master's in Development Studies at SOAS University of London. She will study the historical intersections of systems of power and their relationship to global capitalist development. After the Fulbright, she hopes to continue a career dedicated to improving the economic status of the most marginalized, centering women of color globally. Reyanna is looking forward to immersing herself in London’s thriving literary scene and exploring the city through its pubs, cafes, and bookstores.

Claudia J.

Fulbright-University of Bristol Postgraduate Award - Master of Arts degree in Black Humanities

Claudia is a creative writer and digital creator with broad experience in library service. Hailing from the Washington D.C. metro area, she graduated in 2014 from Towson University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English.

While at Towson, she studied abroad in summer 2013 at J.F. Oberlin University in Tokyo, Japan. This experience led to a deepened interest in promoting the educational benefits of Japanese manga, graphic novels, and comic books in her career. During her time at the University of Bristol, Claudia will pursue a Master of Arts degree in Black Humanities, the only degree of its kind currently in the United Kingdom. She aims to research the lack of Black historical representation in the video game industry through examining connections between Black American and Black British history. She is thrilled to research a subject closely aligned with her personal interests, as she hopes to develop Black historical video games in the near future. Outside of her work, Claudia enjoys exploring neighborhoods with cobblestone streets, playing cozy video games, writing novels, and watching basketball with her family.

Logan Kallam

Fulbright-Global Wales Postgraduate Award - MSc in Marine Environmental Protection at Bangor University

Logan’s passion for the marine environment started young and led to a double major in Environmental Sciences and Plant Biology at North Carolina State University in his home state. Following graduation, he aided in conservation by serving an AmeriCorps term at a land trust in the mountains of North Carolina working on stewardship and community education. The following year he continued that service approach while following a passion for coastal ecosystems by serving another AmeriCorps term with a county conservation district along the Puget Sound in Washington state. His interest in coastal ecosystems had been rekindled during a semester abroad in Australia.  

Pursuing the Master’s in Marine Environmental Protection at Bangor University is an exciting next step for Logan. He chose protection of the marine environment as it and its effect on coastal communities continues to grow in importance due to global issues like climate change. He is eager for his participation in the Fulbright program to foster new connections to like-minded individuals internationally. He plans to dive into learning about Welsh culture from other students and his own explorations. An avid hiker and explorer, he is also excited to explore the distinct natural beauty of Wales.

Keelan Kenny

Fulbright-Royal Veterinary College Postgraduate Award: MSc in One Health: ecosystems, humans, and animals

Keelan Kenny, of Salt Lake City, Utah, graduated from Colorado State University in 2022 with a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences and Environmental Public Health. During her undergraduate career, Kenny explored her diversity of passions, ranging from pathophysiology to social and environmental justice. She struggled to unite all her interests until she discovered the One Health paradigm through her National Environmental Health Association and United States Department of Agriculture internships. This paradigm views health at its nexus of human, animal, and environmental.  

As a Global Scholar, Kenny will study One Health at the Royal Veterinary College in London. With an emphasis on applying the One Health lens to complex infectious disease scenarios, Kenny is looking forward to gaining the scientific and social tools needed to tackle communicable health disparities faced by rural and underserved communities. This area of work is particularly important to her, as she spent time in high school on the Navajo Nation and witnessed first-hand inequities in access to public health services.  

While in London, Kenny looks forward to working with faculty at the forefront of One Health and infectious disease research. In her free time, Kenny loves to run, hike, and volunteer with organizations commitment to sustainability.

Anuj Krishnamurthy

Fulbright-University of Strathclyde Postgraduate Award - MSc, Economics & Policy of Energy & Climate Change

Anuj Krishnamurthy, of Monmouth Junction, New Jersey, graduated from Brown University with concentrations in economics and international relations. He is also currently pursuing coursework in the master of computer and information technology program at the University of Pennsylvania. 

After Brown, Anuj worked in the investor relations group of a New York-based global investment and technology development firm. He has previously completed internships at the Wilson Center's Environmental Change & Security Program and the Environmental Advocacy Unit of the Rhode Island Attorney General's Office, and has conducted research on renewable energy and climate risk through various channels at Penn. As a result of these experiences, Anuj has grown passionate about the effects of climate change on the wider economy and seeks to better understand how careful public policy can facilitate adaptation and resilience. At Strathclyde, Anuj will pursue an MSc in the Economics & Policy of Energy & Climate Change.  

In his free time, Anuj enjoys playing video games and board games with friends, watching Formula 1 races, reading opinions journalism, and trying out new places to eat.

Paul Kyumin Lee

Fulbright-All Disciplines Postgraduate Award - M.Phil in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation

Paul Kyumin Lee works as a Program Specialist for Youth Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and previously worked in the China and North Korea program at USIP. Before joining USIP, Paul worked in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow.  

For six years, Paul led Divided Families USA, an NGO that advocates for a formal mechanism for Korean Americans to reunite with their relatives in North Korea, and is the co-founder and co-host of the Divided Families Podcast, a platform for connecting stories of family separation. Paul has been a dialogue facilitator for the Words of Engagement Intergroup Dialogue Program at the University of Maryland, the Strait Talk Symposium, a civil society dialogue workshop at Brown University and the University of California, Berkeley for youth from mainland China and Taiwan, and at Seeds of Peace, a summer camp in Maine for teenagers from conflict areas. He graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s in political science and speaks Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, and Spanish. 

As a Fulbrighter, Paul will pursue an M.Phil in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation at Trinity College Dublin's Irish School of Ecumenics in Belfast, where he hopes to learn about community-level reconciliation and dialogue initiatives that he can apply to the Korean Peninsula.

Dominique Mobley

Fulbright-All Disciplines Postgraduate Award- MetFilm School, MA in Screenwriting

Dominique has the ambition to increase the number of positive, authentic representations of Black people in media, to free the minds of both Black and non-Black people.  

While an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, Dominique created, wrote, and directed 'A Day in the Life of a Black Girl', a comedic web series, 'The Hair Salon', which was a comedy short film, and its accompanying documentary 'Black @ Dartmouth: The Haircare Experience'. She also directed and produced a documentary entitled 'This is Black Comedy'. The next step in Dominique’s journey is studying for the MA in Screenwriting in the UK to gain a better understanding of Blackness across the diaspora and hone her skills as a storyteller.  

While in the UK, Dominique will continue her love of running by training for the London Marathon. She looks forward to engaging with her host community by helping Black British youth tell their own stories through various media. Having enhanced her screenwriting skills while in the UK, Dominique will push onwards towards her goal of contributing to the creation of a global film and television industry in which positive, authentic representations of Black people is the norm – not the exception.

Elizabeth Montoya

Queen Mary, University of London Postgraduate Award - Global Public Health and Policy

Elizabeth Montoya's journey has been fascinating, with her ambition to leave a positive legacy. In 2022 Elizabeth obtained her bachelor's with honors from The University of California, Irvine (UCI). She earned her B.S. in Immunology and Microbiology, B.A. in Sociology, a minor in Medical Humanities, and certificates from numerous fields of study including Social Determinants of Health in Latino Communities.

Elizabeth conducted research in Immunology and Sociology and presented both subjects at conferences. Elizabeth was also active on her campus; was a public affairs host for her radio show, helped create a financial grant to support the student body during the COVID19 pandemic, and established workshops for marginalized community students. She is excited to leave a positive impact at QMUL and aid her affiliate working in immigrant communities in London. Elizabeth’s motivation is that everyone should have access to quality health care, her desires to learn more about public health policies that different communities/countries use to improve the quality of life for their people and compare it to the US.

Elizabeth is excited to be part of Fulbright as it will help her achieve her goal of becoming a physician-scientist and working to improve the quality of life in low-income immigrant communities.

Ethan Moon

Fulbright-Lancaster University Postgraduate Award - MA in Political Ecology

Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Ethan graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Music. During his sophomore year, Ethan conducted public policy research, using data and empirical methods to highlight health disparities between boys and girls in New Hampshire.

This experience fuelled his desire to work at the intersection of public policy and econometrics, using data to inform legislators and put numbers to issues where previously there had been none. As a Presidential Scholar, he continued his studies with research on corporate governance, examining issues of minority tokenization and leadership structures. Ethan is also a former member of Dartmouth's varsity swim team, a DEI advocate, and an active member of the university's economic research group. In the UK, he will pursue an MA in Political Ecology at Lancaster University, tying issues of corporate governance and sustainability together through an intersectional approach. Aside from his studies, Ethan looks forward to engaging with Lancaster's musical scene, traveling around the English countryside, and learning how to play golf.

Jada Olsen

Fulbright-University of East Anglia Postgraduate Award - Department of Cultural Politics

Jada Olsen, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, graduated from The American University in Washington, D.C. in 2021 with a B.A. and Sociology. Following her freshman year, Jada travelled to South Africa and learned about different art forms that took off during the apartheid years as a form of resistance. After this trip, Jada found her interest in subcultures across the world, specifically those geared toward resistance movements. This inspired her work studying punk, hip-hop, true crime fandom and skateboarding culture.  

At the University of East Anglia in England, she will pursue research on punk subculture(s) in England and in South Africa, focusing on how art forms transform and dissipate borders. In her free time, Jada enjoys writing poetry, reading, painting, and spending time with her friends and family.

Rose Peterschmidt

Fulbright-University of Sussex Postgraduate Award - master’s degree in Conflict, Security, and Development

Growing up in the rural Amish country of Pennsylvania, Rose Peterschmidt’s interest in international travel and study began with a childhood trip to the United Kingdom. She went on to graduate from Temple University Summa cum Laude with a dual degree in Global Security Studies and Spanish. Now, as a UK Fulbright awardee, she has the opportunity to continue her academic journey in the place where it all began.  

Peterschmidt will attend the University of Sussex to study for a master’s degree in Conflict, Security, and Development. There, with the support of Sussex’s globally renown International Development Studies Department, she will expand on her undergraduate research on the conflict between humanitarian and imperial impulses within US foreign aid policy.  She will comparatively analyze British and American approaches to foreign aid and the impact of hegemonic development practices in their respective recipient countries. 

Peterschmidt is very excited to be joining the Brighton community. In her free time, she loves to knit, read, and sing, and she is looking forward to joining the local 'knit & natter' group, as well as the community choir.

Sayde Perry

Fulbright-University of Leicester Postgraduate Award - MPhil degree in Molecular Genetics

Sayde Perry grew up in Massachusetts, USA, Beijing, China, and Santiago, Chile. She has spent the past four years researching bacterial infections and antibiotic resistance and has just graduated in May 2022 with a degree in Molecular Biology from Pomona College.

As antibiotic resistance is becoming one of the world’s most pressing health concerns, Sayde is passionate about developing novel treatments for bacterial disease. Her undergraduate research culminated in a senior thesis project focused on how bacteriophages, or viruses that target bacteria, kill the bacteria that causes cholera. Through her Fulbright, Sayde will pursue a research-based MPhil degree in Molecular Genetics at the University of Leicester with Dr. Martha Clokie. She will research bacteriophages that target and kill the causative agents of urinary tract infections. With a natural curiosity about new places, new people, and new science, Sayde cannot wait to continue her education in the UK. Sayde is especially excited to foster thoughtful relationships between the USA and the UK, think globally about the antibiotic resistance crises, and to push bacteriophage research forward.

Sarah Pitafi

Fulbright-University College London Postgraduate Award

Sarah is from rural Illinois and graduated from Yale University in 2022 with a B.A. in Ethics, Politics, and Economics. As a clinical research coordinator at the Yale COPPER Center, Sarah oversaw multiple research studies, and particularly investigated how to improve equity and accessibility in cancer care through community-based and holistic interventions.

While serving as a research assistant in the pediatrics department of Washington University Medical School, Sarah worked on a project to analyze the impact of malnutrition on pediatric cognitive development. She also worked with underserved rural healthcare populations, which motivated her to focus on understanding how physicians can combat healthcare inequities. Her senior thesis explored the ethics and efficacy of establishing COVID-19 vaccine mandates at universities like Yale. Sarah has served as a policy director for the Yale College Council, a treasurer for the Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project, and as a volunteer at local free healthcare clinics and vaccine programs.

As a Fulbrighter, she will attend University College London to obtain an M.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Ethics of Healthcare. She hopes to be a pediatrician that works with underserved and rural populations, and utilizes clinical research and public policy to craft solutions to systemic healthcare access barriers. Sarah's excited to continue volunteering in hospitals in London, as well as visit every museum possible.

Jason Ray

Fulbright-Global Wales Visiting Student Researcher Award - Bangor University School of Welsh and Celtic Studies

Jason Ray is a PhD candidate in English at Fordham University, focusing on medieval literature and critical theory. He received a BA in Theater Studies from Yale University and an MA in Medieval & Renaissance Studies from Columbia University.  His dissertation project explores how nostalgia operates in medieval texts, particularly how medieval subjects themselves feel and write about their past in those texts. 

Jason is thrilled to be a Global Wales Visiting Student Researcher and to have the opportunity to immerse himself in the country’s rich history and culture as well as its beautiful countryside.  At Bangor, he will pursue an interdisciplinary project that considers how language, texts, and monuments reflect and shape cultural memory, experience, and identity.  He is interested in how early Welsh subjects self-identified in the face of displacement, subjugation, and exploitation before modern colonialism.  Jason is also very excited to study the Welsh language and enjoy the rich musical heritage in Wales, from traditional Celtic to choral, while on his Fulbright.

Carl Romer

Fulbright-London School of Economics and Political Science Postgraduate Award - MSc Econometrics and Mathematical Economics

Carl Romer holds a bachelor’s degree from Howard University where he studied economics and philosophy. At LSE, Carl will pursue a MSc in Economics and Philosophy. He looks forward to learning more about economic history and the understanding of rationality. After completing his coursework at LSE he plans on earning a PhD in economics.  

Before beginning his Fulbright he was a data analyst at the California Policy Lab (CPL) where he worked on a research team studying unemployment insurance and workforce training. He has also worked as a research assistant in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Program for Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute. His research interests lie at the intersection of education, labor and housing with a focus on achieving social and economic justice. Carl is quite excited to continue his scholarship examining student loans and higher education and plans to write his masters thesis on the topic. 

While in London, he hopes to join the LSE Chess Team to compete and participate in chess lessons and tournaments. Carl also plans to find out how many times it takes to order [vegan] chicken tikka masala before waiters see him coming and alert the chefs.

Hailee Scarafile

MedSci in Speech and Language Therapy from University of Sheffield - Fulbright-University of Sheffield Postgraduate Award

Hailee graduated from Temple University with a BA in speech, language, and hearing science. During her time at Temple, she studied audiology, communication disorders, linguistics and more but it was her research at the Temple University Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic that led her to her Fulbright journey.

Hailee’s time in the clinic analyzing the applications of speech therapy on clients with a range of abilities sparked her desire to provide individualized care for clients in need. At the University of Sheffield, Hailee will be pursuing a MMedSci in speech and language therapy in which she will learn effective speech therapy treatment styles unique to the UK and combine them to those of the US in order to deliver the most dynamic and versatile care to the clients she hopes to work with in the future. Hailee is very excited to try all the wonderful food Sheffield has to offer, she hopes to find Cuban food as good as her mother’s. Hailee is also ready to start training for the Sheffield Half Marathon in March 2023.

Jasmyne Sheridan

Fulbright-University of Strathclyde Postgraduate Award - School of Social Work and Social Policy

Jasmyne Sheridan graduated from Western Washington University in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in Human Services, and has spent the past four years providing social services at local community agencies to those experiencing homelessness.

Sheridan is passionate about elevating the voices of young people and those most impacted by social issues, as well as working to find creative solutions to these issues. Sheridan is excited to utilize her time studying International Social Welfare at the University of Strathclyde as an opportunity for global collaboration and to gain insight into the role she can play in addressing the homelessness crisis, and it’s many intersecting issues. Sheridan looks forward to getting involved in the community in Glasgow by connecting to the work of local social service agencies. As a travel lover and adventure seeker, Sheridan can’t wait to explore, hike, and camp throughout the beautiful country of Scotland and get to know individuals from all different walks of life.

Anna Stroinski

Fulbright-Durham University Postgraduate Award - MA in History

Anna Stroinski graduated summa cum laude from Boston University with majors in history and philosophy in 2019. The proud daughter of working-class Polish emigres to the United States, she is committed to creating a fairer, more equitable world for workers through political organizing and historical scholarship. The contemporary labor movement, she believes, can learn from its past successes and failures as well as the individual experiences of workers who have lived through and thought a lot about things like mechanization, unionization, and deindustrialization. Anna studies the intersections of labor, political, and intellectual history with a focus on ideas about work, the workplace, and inequality.

Her undergraduate thesis looked at how middle class townspeople weaponized conceptions of community against strike leadership but also federal investigators, mainstream journalists, and Pinkerton guards during the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike. On Fulbright, she will pursue a MA in Modern History at Durham University. Her dissertation project will examine the intellectual history of the labor strike between 1870 and 1914 with a focus on coal miners’ strikes in the US and the UK. Anna is very much looking forward to visiting the Beamish Museum, learning more about Durham’s local history, and sampling traditional northeast English dishes!

Maria Tirmizi

King’s College London Postgraduate Award - Politics

Maria graduated from Columbia University with an MA in South Asian Studies, an interdisciplinary program in politics, anthropology, history, and international relations situated within the context of South Asia. Prior to this, she earned an MS in Journalism from Columbia Journalism School and specialized in long-form writing. As an editor, writer, and researcher at UN Women, Maria has authored several publications that provide policy recommendations for promoting women’s economic empowerment in the workplace and community. Maria’s passion for human rights and social justice issues led her to a career in journalism during which she reported extensively from Islamabad and also headed a newsroom in the capital city. Her interest in race, state-minority relations, and social justice movements developed during the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States in 2020 and as a grassroots worker mobilizing New York’s Muslim communities to exercise their voting rights.

As a PhD student at King’s College London, Maria will carry out a cross-cultural study of grassroots mobilizations against structural racialized violence in the United States and Pakistan. Maria is a founding board member for Sabika for Peace Foundation, a non-profit that provides scholarships to students to pursue undergraduate education. An avid follower of British period films and literature, she is excited to soak in the green landscape, historical sites, and museums of the UK.

Alexandra Tyra

Master of Science in Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham - Fulbright-University of Birmingham Postgraduate Award

Alexandra, an Arizona native, spent much of her childhood traveling to remote parts of the world, witnessing social and economic inequalities that govern mental and physical health outcomes. Through her travels, Alex became passionate about improving our understanding of health disparities across social groups and identifying routes of intervention. 

In 2017, she graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Psychological Sciences and a BS in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Northern Arizona University. She continued her education at Baylor University, where she earned her MA in Psychology and is currently in her final year of studying for a PhD in Psychology. Her research on stress and health has been published in prestigious peer-reviewed journals.   

However, as an emerging health psychologist, Alex recognizes the importance of strengthening her training in health science. As such, she plans to earn a supplementary MSc in Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham UK. Here, she will learn how to implement cutting-edge health intervention techniques in trauma-exposed refugee communities at risk of social and economic uncertainty. While abroad, Alex is excited to explore Birmingham’s culinary and music scene, in addition to enjoying her morning runs along the city center canals.

Lindsey Albertson

Loughborough University Scholar Award- Ecology

Lindsey is a Professor at Montana State University in Bozeman Montana, where she has a research lab that studies interactions and feedbacks between geomorphology, hydrology, and freshwater organisms, with a focus on invertebrates. She studies a variety of freshwater ecosystems in the Rocky Mountain West, including Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park, the Madison River, which supports an iconic blue-ribbon trout fishery, and headwater streams at 10,000 feet elevation in Colorado. Lindsey received her Bachelor of Science degree in Geology-Biology from Brown University in Rhode Island. She attended graduate school at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) in the Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology Department. After receiving her Ph.D. from UCSB in 2013, she held a Post-Doctoral position at the Stroud Water Research Center, a non-profit research and educational institute in Pennsylvania.

Lindsey Appell

Queen’s University Belfast (Creative Writing) Award, Queen’s University Belfast- Creative Writing

Lindsey Appell is a writer and writing instructor originally from rural Montana. She holds a Master of Arts in English (British and American Literature) from the University of Utah and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Boise State University. Her poetry blends confessional, documentary, and experimental translation as lenses through which to examine the self and subjectivity at different ages and stages of development: how those selves navigate, war against, and at times fall to the long legacy of patriarchal expectations and power structures. Her scholarly interests are broad and include postcolonial theory, Old English poetry, medieval romance, James Joyce, and Jane Austen.

Gregory Daddis

Oxford-Pembroke College Distinguished Scholar Award, University of Oxford- Military History

Gregory A. Daddis is a professor of history at San Diego State University and holds the USS Midway Chair in Modern US Military History. Daddis joined SDSU after directing the MA Program in War and Society Studies at Chapman University. Prior, he served as the Chief of the American History Division in the Department of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point. A retired US Army colonel, he deployed to both Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. Daddis specializes in the history of the Vietnam Wars and the Cold War era and has authored five books, including Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men's Adventure Magazines (2020) and Withdrawal: Reassessing America’s Final Years in Vietnam (2017). He has also published numerous journal articles and several op-ed pieces commenting on current military affairs, to include writings in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and National Interest magazine.

Andrea Frederick

Edinburgh Napier University Scholar Award, Edinburgh Napier University- Nursing

Andrea Frederick, DHA, MSN, CHSE, RN, is Professor of Nursing, Crystal M. Lange College of Health and Human Services, Saginaw Valley State University, University Center, Michigan. Previously, she was a director of nursing at MidMichigan Medical Center in Midland, Michigan. Her career in nursing, nursing management and health care administration spanned over thirty years. Her academic interests include critical care nursing, simulation education, health care finance, and interprofessional development. Dr. Frederick emphasizes the value of diversity in thought and experience that individuals of differing backgrounds bring to solving complex health care problems.

Jason Garvey

Fulbright-British Library Eccles Centre Scholar Award- Education

Queer narratives have an important and meaningful place in society, and Garvey aims to uplift these stories in his Fulbright project entitled ‘College Fag: The Autobiography of a Queer Educator.’ As a Fulbright Scholar with the British Library’s Eccles Centre, he will conduct research concerning queer people in education and society broadly combined with his own journey as a queer student and educator. Back home, Garvey is the Friedman-Hipps Green and Gold Professor of Education at the University of Vermont and studies the experiences of queer and trans people in education. He lives in a beautiful and forested area of New England with his partner Dan and their pup Benji.

Garvey will be in London from January-June 2023 and is excited to experience city living. While abroad, he looks forward to joining a rowing club, attending live theatre performances, visiting universities across the UK, and fostering new friendships with queer folks!

Carrie Hall

Fulbright-Lancaster University Scholar Award- Engineering

Dr. Carrie Hall is an associate professor in the Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering Department at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). She earned her PhD from Purdue in 2012 and has been at IIT since 2013. Her areas of interest include the control of engines that leverage advanced combustion modes and alternative liquid and gaseous fuels, control of hydrogen fuel cell systems, and the analysis and improvement of energy efficiency in transportation. Dr. Hall is an associate editor for Control Engineering Practice and the ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control.

Chansheng He

Fulbright-University of Leeds Distinguished Scholar Award- Geography

Dr. Chansheng He, professor of geography, is a Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Western Michigan University. He is a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), fellow of American Association of Geographers (AAG), and has received Distinguished Career Award in Water Resources from AAG Water Resources Specialty Group, and Fulbright Senior Specialist Awards.

He serves on the editorial boards of Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, Science China Earth Sciences, and Geography and Sustainability. His research focuses on integration of in situ observations, remote sensing, GIS, and simulation models to better observe, understand, and analyze how land use/cover change resulting from human- environmental interactions affects the watershed hydrological processes and distribution of water resources over space and time. He has published nearly 120 journal articles and authored/co-authored 10 books. He holds adjunct appointments in a number of international institutions.

Rebecca Jablonski

Fulbright-Cardiff University Scholar Award- Economics

Cities across the UK, EU, and US are increasingly adopting food policies to achieve sustainability goals. These policies often neglect regional voices despite the significant regional effects of these policies. With this Fulbright-Cardiff University Scholar Award Rebecca will join the FOODTRAILS project, and explore how urban food policies contribute to sustainable regional development. She will also have the opportunity to conduct a comparative analysis with the US, leveraging a new project funded by the US Department of Agriculture and including partners from Johns Hopkins and Ohio State Universities.

In Colorado, Rebecca is co-Director of Colorado State University's Food Systems Institute, she co-leads the Food Systems Extension team, and serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. She lives in the foothills of Bellvue, Colorado with her husband (rangeland ecologist) and two daughters (10 and 2) who will be joining her in Wales.

Daniel Larlham

Fulbright-University of Roehampton Scholar Award - Drama

Daniel Larlham is a performance researcher and theatre maker with a PhD in theatre from Columbia University and an MFA in acting from New York University. He has held academic appointments at Yale University’s Theater Studies Program, the Freie Universität Berlin, and Saint Mary's College of California. His articles have appeared in TDR: The Drama Review, Theatre Journal, Theater (Yale), Modern Drama, and Theatre Survey. His current research interests include drama and psychology, heroes and the heroic, and performance and ecology.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Daniel will be hosted by the University of Roehampton's School of Arts while pursuing his research project Heroism in the Anthropocene, which examines climate change and environmental activism from a mytho-dramatic perspective. Daniel looks forward to collaborating with faculty affiliated with the Roehampton Climate Network on workshops that combine eco-philosophy, the environmental humanities, and the expressive arts.

Lynn Lukkas

Fulbright-University of Dundee Scholar Award, University of Dundee- Film Directing

Lynn Tjernan Lukkas is a filmmaker, artist, and curator internationally recognized for her films, large-scale media installations, collaborative media performance projects with opera, dance, and theater, and her media-arts curatorial projects. Lukkas’ work addresses some of the most current concerns in contemporary art and life exploring cultural and social power dynamics and their ability to form one’s individual subjectivity and identity. The cinematic scale of her projects and lush visual poetics foreground the complexity of contemporary human experience.

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA in 1956, Lukkas received a BFA from the University of Minnesota in 1985 and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1988. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation among others.

Kenneth Macleod

Fulbright-University of Birmingham Distinguished Scholar Award- Geology

During his time at the University of Birmingham, Kenneth will summarize and synthesis data from two decades of study of samples from coastal Tanzania. He is excited to reconnect with many and meet many others in the UK and feels the projects mesh well with his career spanning focus on ancient greenhouse climates.

Beyond this project, Kenneth is excited to live, study, and see more of the UK, having only visited for short trips to London. Having shared pictures with his geology students of classic localities in Scotland, Wales, and England for decades, Kenneth hopes to collaborate with others and take part in Fulbright activities that will give him the chance to visit some of these sites in person.

Maria McGarrity

Fulbright-Queen's University Belfast Scholar Award (Irish Literature)- Modern Literature

Maria McGarrity is Professor of English at Long Island University in Brooklyn. She has published two monographs, Washed by the Gulf Stream: the Historic and Geographic Relation of Irish and Caribbean Literature (Delaware, 2008) and Allusions in Omeros (Florida, 2015) as well as two co-edited collections, Irish Modernism and the Global Primitive (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Caribbean Irish Connections (University of the West Indies Press, 2015).  She is currently completing her new book, Modern Irish Literature and the Primitive Sublime  (Routledge).

Ilyse Morganstein Fuerst

Fulbright-University of Birmingham Scholar Award- Religious Studies

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst is associate professor of religion and associate director Humanities Center at the University of Vermont. Her research centers on Islam and Muslims in South Asia; histories of imperialism; and theories of religion, race, and language. Her first book is titled Indian Muslim Minorities and the 1857 Rebellion (2017); she co-edited Words of Experience: Translating Islam with Carl W. Ernst (2021). Her next books are about religion, race, and politics: the first, Imperial Pandemics, is about global Islamophobia and antisemitism; the second, Religion Isn’t Done With You, focuses on how religion is a system that shapes our world, regardless of personal faith. She is committed to public scholarship and pedagogy, and has won multiple teaching awards as well as hosts the popular, grant-funded podcast Keeping It 101: a Killjoy's Introduction to Religion.

Adria Navarro

Fulbright-University of York Scholar Award- Social Work Practice

Adria E. Navarro, PhD, LCSW is an established gerontological social worker who received the US-UK Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research and teaching at the University of York. Through policy and competency efforts, she hopes to enhance health professionals’ assessment of decisional capacity through social care on behalf of older persons in California.

Navarro is co-founder and program manager of the USC-VHH Community Resource Center for Aging, situated within an academic health system. She provides consultation to an array of entities, as well as having taught the past decade as Associate Professor, MSW Program, Azusa Pacific University. Social workers are the largest provider of mental health care in the United States. They are employed within many institutions of care and are sanctioned in several states to evaluate capacity for the U.S. legal system. Dr. Navarro's career is dedicated to maintaining older persons’ preferences in support of both their well-being and their safety.

Kathleen Neville Caporaso

Fulbright-Edinburgh Napier University Scholar Award- Nursing

Kathleen Neville Caporaso of Lebanon, New Jersey, graduated from New York University with a PhD in Theory Development and Research in Nursing, an MA in Nursing Education and a BS in Nursing from Rutgers University. Kathleen has extensive experience in Nursing; in clinical practice, in academia and in research leading scholarly projects with undergraduate and graduate nursing students to advance Nursing knowledge and practice. Her scientific inquiry has addressed challenges in nursing practice such as compassion fatigue, measurement of nurses' perceptions of rounding practices, noise mitigation, night shift fatigue, and nurses’ stigma towards individuals with substance and opioid use disorders. As a Fulbright UK Scholar, Kathleen will conduct a mixed-method investigation exploring nursing students' perceptions of individuals with opioid use disorders at the Edinburgh Napier University School of Health and Social Care in Scotland.

Derron Wallace

Fulbright-Durham University Scholar Award- Sociology

Derron is an assistant professor of sociology and education with expertise in race, culture and education. He specializes in cross-national studies of structural and cultural inequalities in urban schools across global cities, focusing specifically on the experiences of Black youth. His current research examines the educational experiences and outcomes of Black youth in London and New York City.

Derron is a Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude graduate of Wheaton College (Massachusetts), where he studied sociology and the African diaspora. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, where he was a Marshall and Gates Cambridge Scholar.

With wide-ranging experiences in educational activism, analysis, policy and research, Derron has worked with nomads in Ethiopia, young people with disabilities in Rwanda, immigrant youth in London, economically disadvantaged rural youth in Jamaica, English language learners in Thailand and gifted students in New York City.

William Cavert

Fulbright-University of Sheffield Scholar Award (All Disciplines)

William Cavert is an environmental historian of early modern Britain, teaching at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. His first book The Smoke of London: Energy and Environment in the Early Modern City won several prizes and has been translated into Chinese. Related publications have explored early industrial coal consumption, literary representations of smoke pollution, and the politics of cold winters.  

His current project examines the widespread and killing of species like sparrows, foxes, polecats, and hedgehogs, all called “vermin” in early modern England. It tracks who participated in this prolonged hunt, and how such killing fit into evolving human-animal relations, programs of agricultural improvement, and the politics of local society. At Sheffield he will work with the Centre for Early Modern Studies and the Animal Studies Research Centre.

Marcy Karin

Fulbright-Scotland Distinguished Scholar at the University of Edinburgh, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Edinburgh- Women's Studies

Marcy L. Karin is the Jack & Lovell Olender Professor of Law and Director of the Legislation/Civil Rights Clinic at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law.  Through the clinic, she trains legislative lawyers and advances systemic reform projects for non-profits that are working to improve access to civil rights.  Professor Karin also teaches and writes about employment, gender, and disability law and policy.  Her scholarship focuses on menstrual dignity, legislative lawyering pedagogy, and workplace protections for menstruators, breastfeeding workers, domestic violence survivors, people with disabilities, and the military community. 

Karin’s Fulbright will explore public policy efforts to eliminate systemic oppression related to menstruation and to support menstruating individuals at work and school, including lessons from Scotland’s groundbreaking Period Products Act and broader menstrual justice initiatives throughout the United Kingdom.

Helen Kinsella

Queen’s University Belfast, U.S. Friends of Queen's University Belfast Distinguished Scholar Award

Professor Kinsella is an Associate Professor of Political Science & Law, Affiliate Faculty of Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, the Human Rights Center, and the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change at the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis. Her research focuses on the theorization of gender, armed violence and international humanitarian law. She is currently working on two books: one on sleep in war and another on settler empire and the laws of war. She is the author of the award winning The Image before the Weapon: A Critical History of the Distinction between Combatant and Civilian (Cornell University Press, 2011). Her work has also appeared in journals such as American Political Science Review, Review of International Studies, International Theory, Political Theory, Feminist Review, among others. 

Prior to joining UMN, she was an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and an affiliate in the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, from 2005 to 2018. She has also held fellowships at the Council on Foreign Relations and the New York University School of Law, as well as postdoctoral and predoctoral appointments at Stanford University, and Harvard University.

Dongwon Lee

Fulbright-Cyber Security Award, Cambridge University

Dongwon Lee is currently a professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology (a.k.a. iSchool) at the Pennsylvania State University, also serving as the director of Ph.D. program, and an ACM Distinguished Scientist, elected in 2019. Before starting at Penn State, he has worked at AT&T Bell Labs and obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA. From 2015 to 2017, he has also served as a Program Director at National Science Foundation (NSF), co-managing cybersecurity research and education programs and contributing to the development of national research priorities. In general, he researches on the computational problems in the intersection of Data Science, Machine Learning, and Cybersecurity.

Since 2017, in particular, he has led the SysFake project at Penn State, investigating computational and socio-technical solutions to better combat fake news. More details of his research can be found at: http://pike.psu.edu/. At Cambridge, during the Fulbright visit, he will collaborate with scholars in Psychology, researching on novel ways to inoculate people psychologically not to fall for deepfakes and other mediafakes.

Paul Daniel Marriott

Fulbright-National Library of Scotland Scholar Award- Landscape Architecture

Dan Marriott is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University and Principal of Paul Daniel Marriott + Associates, a heritage planning consultancy in Washington, DC. He was a Program Director at the US National Trust and has consulted for federal, state, tribal and local governments. He has been a guest lecturer and critic at Columbia, Cornell, Maryland, Oregon, UCLA and Edinburgh Universities, teaches a historic roads course for the National Preservation Institute and was an instructor for the AIA Sustainable Cities Design Academy.  He has been featured in the New York Times and Financial Times and on the WTTW-PBS heritage program, “10 Streets That Changed America.” He served as a World Heritage investigator for historic roads in Mexico, the EU and South America. He is on the Board of Trustees for the National Association for Olmsted Parks. In 2018 his research was featured at the “Repton Revived” exhibit at the Garden Museum in London.

Mary Beth Privitera

Fulbright-University of Nottingham Scholar Award, University of Nottingham- Medical Technology

Mary Beth is a Professor at the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and is a principal at HS-Design, responsible for human factors and research. Additionally, she serves as co-chair of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation’s Human Engineering Committee.  She has authored several articles and two books titled “Contextual Inquiry for Medical Device Design” and “Applied Human Factors in Medical Device Design.” Design touches every aspect of our lives, especially in the man-made products we rely on to enjoy life and complete our work.  In medical device design, the details of design take on life-or-death importance. 

The aim of this US-UK Fulbright project is to identify the different ways in which users interpret design in order to increase diagnostic/therapeutic effectiveness in international contexts.  The overarching hypothesis is that through better device design, improved patient outcomes can be achieved.

Dave Harper

Fulbright-University of York Scholar Award (All Disciplines)

Colonel Dave Harper is Head of the Department of English and Philosophy at the United States Military Academy, West Point. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas, Austin in 2012 and was promoted to Full Professor in 2022. His research focuses on Book History, the poet statesman John Milton, Eighteenth-Century literary criticism, and Interregnum and Restoration texts.

His recent publication “The First Annotator of Paradise Lost and the Makings of English Literary Criticism” (Studies in English Literature, 2019) was awarded Honorable Mention for the Milton Society of America’s James Holly Hanford Award for a distinguished essay on Milton. His book, Paradise Lost and the Making of English Literary Criticism (forthcoming from Routledge in 2023) reexamines how the reception of Paradise Lost shaped the development of literary criticism.

Dr. Carla-Ann Brown

Fulbright Distinguished Teacher, University College London

Dr. Carla-Ann Brown is a University School Assistant Professor at P.K Yonge DRS at the University of Florida and the 2022 P.K. Yonge District Teacher of the Year. Her primary research focuses on personalized and Universally Designed student experiences through standards-based and Culturally Sustaining (CS) teaching/learning and the dismantling of inequitable educational practices with over twenty-five professional presentations (international, national, and state) and several publications in peer-reviewed journals.  

Her research seeks to examine the experiences of Black/Brown educators in their K-12 settings as they navigate teaching in current times and provide insight into the mindsets of Black/Brown educators. As a practitioner-researcher, this research will contribute to the field of CS education because it will include the voices and challenges Black/Brown educators face while working to create equitable learning environments for students. 

Donalda Surla

Fulbright Distinguished Teacher, University of Strathclyde

Donalda Surla is in her 19th year of teaching English and Drama at Rio Vista High School, in Northern California. Various roles throughout her teaching tenure include Domestic Exchange Coordinator, Gay/Straight Alliance advisor, and Staff Committee for Student Wellness founder. She is committed to bringing new experiences and resources to her under-served rural community. Donalda loves travel, food, genealogy, the Chicago Cubs, and her dog. She shares those passions with her husband and daughter. 

Donalda’s inquiry project focuses on the ways the Scottish initiative called “Getting Right for Every Child,” seeks to better the wellbeing of children and young people. She hopes to gather data concerning successful structures and strategies that could be replicated upon returning home, improving outcomes for students in the California Delta. 

Terry Walden

Fulbright Distinguished Teacher, University of Glasgow

What motivates me is my work. And my work revolves around the children that I interact with as an educator. My children inform me and it is from this place and space that I continually evolve and nurture my teaching paradigm.

Since 2008, I have centered my professional development and growth on in-place learning. My passport is a constant in my life. In the fine arts, there is a saying when everything is flowing in your direction; you are ‘riding the train’ so to speak. And I have been on a professional development train that shows no signs of letting me off. This Fulbright is the culmination of ten years of progressive engagement with how do we get this right for students globally? A colleague suggested the United Kingdom to me. I remember his words clearly, ‘I see you with these kids, you understand and there you will understand how it all fits together.’ This isn’t my first trip to the UK but it is to Scotland. I am most intrigued by Scotland’s commitment to equity. 

George L. Daniels

The University of Alabama - Global Challenges Teaching Award exploring racial injustice

George is a former television news producer turned mass media scholar.   Since 2003, he’s been teaching newswriting and reporting, electronic news reporting, media management and host of other courses at  The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. 

In 2021, he co-edited Teaching Race: Struggles, Strategies and Scholarship for the Mass Communication Classroom.  Currently, he’s finishing his second book, Barrier Breakers: Media Educators Meeting the Diversity Challenge Across the Decades.  An associate professor of journalism and creative media, Dr. Daniels researches issues of race in the media workplace and the dynamics of race in news reporting.  He’s the winner of several national awards for his teaching in the areas of media management, service learning and community engagement. In 2021, he was the recipient the Gene Burd Award in Urban Journalism Studies for his ongoing studies of the contemporary Black press.

From 2013 to 2019, Dr. Daniels was assistant dean for administration in The University of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Sciences. He’s worked as a broadcast journalist in Atlanta, Ga., Cincinnati. Ohio and his hometown of Richmond, Virginia.  Currently,  Dr. Daniels serves as the inaugural Faculty Fellow for Diversity and Inclusion for the Broadcast Education Association.

Dr Amal Abu-Bakare

The University of Liverpool - Global Challenges Teaching Award exploring racial injustice

Dr Amal Abu-Bakare is a British-Canadian lecturer in the politics of race and decolonial studies at the University of Liverpool and a Visiting Fellow at the University of South Wales’ International Centre for Policing & Security.

Amal earned her doctoral degree from Aberystwyth University’s Department of International Politics in 2020 where she successfully defended her thesis researching how logics of racialisation structure counterterrorism approaches in the United Kingdom and Canada. She is also an alumna of the University of Warwick, where she completed her master’s in International Relations; and of Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario, where she completed her bachelor’s degree in Politics and Global Development Studies, with honours. 

Amal continues to publish a breadth of literature at the intersection of anticolonial scholarship, terrorism studies expertise, and International Relations Theory. Her writing can be found in journals such as International Affairs, Alternatives, International Politics Reviews, Media Diversified, E-International Relations, and soon, International Political Sociology.

Jonathan Kennedy

Queen Mary University of London - Global Challenges Teaching Award exploring pandemics

Jonathan is a Reader in Politics and Global Health in the Centre for Public Health and Policy at Queen Mary University of London.  

His research uses insights from sociology, political economy, anthropology, and international relations to analyse important public health problems. He has explored the link between populist politics and vaccine hesitancy in Europe, the negative impact of the CIA drone strikes on polio eradication efforts in Pakistan, and how Saudi-led bombing of Yemen resulted in the world’s worst cholera outbreak in 2017. Currently, he is working on a book about the impact of infectious disease on human history – from the extinction of the Neanderthals forty thousand years ago to covid-19 – that will be published by Penguin in 2023.  

He obtained his PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge (2013). Prior to joining Queen Mary University in 2016, he taught international development at the Department of Political Science, University College London and worked as a research associate at the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge.

Staci Strobl

Shenandoah University (Virginia) - Global Challenges Teaching Award exploring climate change

Staci Strobl is a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Shenandoah University in Virginia (USA) and a research fellow in the Sectarianism, Proxies, and Desectarianization Center (SEPAD), University of Lancaster (UK).

In 2019, she and two colleagues (Lieselot Bisshop and Julie Viollaz) received the Outstanding Article Award given by the Division of White Collar and Corporate Crime of the American Society of Criminology. The article, entitled “Getting into deep water: Coastal land loss and state-corporate crime in the Louisiana bayou,” was published in the British Journal of Criminology in 2018. Strobl’s research focuses on environmental crime, state and corporate crime, and comparative criminal justice with particular attention paid to gender, ethnic, religious and sect identity. She is the author of Sectarian Order in Bahrain: The Social and Colonial Origins of Criminal Justice (Lexington Books, 2018). 

She has also earned the Radzinowicz Memorial Prize for her article in the British Journal of Criminology about the criminalization of female domestic workers in Bahrain. Strobl is published in the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy; International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice; The Review of Faith and International Affairs; and Nidaba: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, among other journals. 

Jessie Dubreuil

University of California - Global Challenges Teaching Award exploring pandemics

Jessie Dubreuil is Associate Director for Learning at the Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning (CITL) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as faculty in the Writing Program and at Merrill College.

Jessie received her undergraduate and masters degrees in English from Stanford University and her Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Virginia. Prior to joining the UCSC community, Jessie was the Director of the First Year Experience (FYE) Program at Colorado College, where she taught literature and humanities courses and focused her research and teaching on experiential and community-based learning. There, she spearheaded grants, programs, and partnerships to incorporate Community Based Learning into the first year curriculum, oversaw the FYE Mentor program, and received the Exemplary Achievement in Community Engaged Teaching Award (2015). Almost a decade ago, she began exploring the rhetoric of health and illness with students and community partners at the Moab Free Health Clinic. Jessie is currently the faculty fellow in the UCSC Division of Global Engagement’s Global Classrooms Initiative, and is co-editor, with Sikina Jinnah, Jody Greene, and Sam Foster (eds.), of Teaching Environmental Politics and Justice, under contract at Edward Elgar Publishers.

Sammie Buzzard

Cardiff University - Global Challenges Teaching Award exploring climate change

Sammie Buzzard is a glaciologist and climate scientist, who works as a lecturer in climate science at Cardiff University, Wales. She holds a Master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Exeter and completed her PhD at the University of Reading during which she investigated the surface hydrology of Antarctica's ice shelves.

Her research interests including modelling how and where ice shelves may become vulnerable to sudden collapse due to melting on their surfaces. This is important in determining Antarctica's future contribution to global sea level. Her interests in the polar regions also extend to the surface hydrology of Greenland and snow and melt on Arctic sea ice.

Sammie is the International Arctic Sciences Committee 2020 cryosphere fellow and is also a fellow of the UK’s Software Sustainability Institute. She has a passion for science communication and regularly speaks at theatre shows targeted at teenagers, as well as in schools, museums and in various forms of media. She has a strong interest in increasing the diversity of those working and studying in STEM fields.

Melanie Brown

Civic Science Fellow 2022-23

Melanie Brown is an award winning multimedia journalist who will serve as the Civic Science Storytelling Fellow based at the University of Oregon’s Center for Science Communication Research. Melanie has spent the past decade working for the BBC in factual programming with a focus on making science documentaries for the BBC World Service. She is passionate about telling complex science stories in ways that are accessible to a broad audience and foster engagement with the most pressing scientific, environmental, and health issues. Some of her past stories have covered; brain computer interfaces, China’s scientific development and its implications for geo-politics, wildfires, AI in warfare, underwater noise pollution, memory loss, the future of toilets and gene editing.

Before retraining as a journalist, Melanie worked in international development in communications and fundraising roles. She cut her teeth meeting communities in rural Afghanistan and sharing their stories to increase awareness around the challenges they faced. This experience helped her foster a people centred storytelling approach to convey nuanced understandings of development projects in complicated settings.

Melanie holds an MA and NCTJ in Multimedia Journalism and a BA in International Relations from the University of Sussex. Outside of work Melanie enjoys getting into nature, whether that’s her garden or the great outdoors, she’s often found with a camera poised at some tiny natural wonder and is she is learning to wood carve and kayak, she doesn’t like dill.

Nwamaka Agbandje-Boyce

Postgraduate Award at Indiana University Maurer School of Law - LL.M.

Amaka is a born and bred Londoner who graduated with a degree in law from the University of Kent in 2021. With aspirations of becoming a barrister, Amaka has become fascinated with what she describes as "People Law". Compelled by her need to use her knowledge and experience to help others, she hopes to specialise in an area of law that features a very strong human and emotional element that will allow her to fulfil her role as a "legal linguist".

Truly dedicated to a career at the Bar and lawyerly skills, in the final year of her undergraduate studies, Amaka was elected into the role of Mistress of the Moots, in which she vowed to increase the level of advocacy opportunities available to her fellow law students. During her time in the United States, Amaka hopes to use what she has learnt on her LLM course to widen her expertise and become an all-around, well-versed lawyer in the years to come. She hopes this opportunity will open the doors for her to become dually qualified in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Sarah Barrington

Elsevier Data Analytics Award, UC Berkeley - Information Management

Sarah is an Engineer & Data Scientist working at the intersection of advanced analytics and emerging technologies. Having grown up with a passion for solving problems, Sarah attended the University of Cambridge on an IMechE Scholarship before graduating with a First Class master's degree in Manufacturing Engineering. She worked at McLaren Applied Technologies implementing novel machine learning techniques from Formula 1 into industries like healthcare and energy. Realising the power of these technologies worldwide, Sarah co-founded two start-ups exploring applications within digital media and blockchain infrastructure. Through also pursuing a consultancy career across a range of industry-led Data Science projects, she observed a gap between the potential industrial benefit and actual implementation of advanced analytics. Sarah’s ambition is to be a leader in a world in which artificial intelligence algorithms are developed equitably, securely and for social good. Pursuing a master's degree at the UC Berkeley School of Information, Sarah plans to develop a robust framework for the implementation of modelling techniques in complex engineering and societal problems. Sarah is excited to be a part of the Berkeley and Fulbright communities, as well as exploring the local mountain biking opportunities and experiencing Silicon Valley in real life.

David Bernard

All Disciplines Award, UC Berkeley - Economics

David is a PhD student at the Paris School of Economics where his research focuses on methods for estimating the long-term impacts of public policy. Before his PhD, he completed a Masters in Public Policy and Development, also at the Paris School of Economics, and a bachelors in PPE from the University of Warwick. He is interested in understanding the most pressing global problems and what can be done to solve them. Having previously worked for Rethink Priorities, Giving What We Can, the Centre for Effective Altruism, Academics Stand Against Poverty, and the United Nations Development Program, he will use his Fulbright at UC Berkeley to continue his career within academia by further developing his work on new methods for estimating long-term impacts. He is excited to join the international Fulbright community since global challenges can only be dealt with by bringing diverse perspectives and ideas to the table. Having previously studied abroad in Sweden and France he is excited by the opportunity to spend time in the USA and experience American culture, especially the jazz scene and the natural wonders of California.

Lylaah Bhalerao

All Disciplines Award, New York University - Ancient World Studies

Lylaah was raised amidst love, laughter, stories, and multi-cultural pride in North London by a mixed family of British Indian Hindus and British Indo-Guyanese Muslims. She naturally advocates for all these communities and her background guides her commitment to fostering cultural exchange. She intends to channel this into her doctoral research and broader activities as a Fulbrighter. As an academic activist, Lylaah is committed to taking critical, cross-cultural approaches to ancient art and heritage. She earned a BA (with double first-class honours) and an MPhil in Classics at the University of Cambridge. Whilst there, she also held numerous leadership positions including Students’ Union President at Murray Edwards College and Co-President of Cambridge’s ‘Mastana’ (annual charity South Asian Cultural Variety Show). Most recently, she has led the campaign for race equality measures and decolonisation in the Cambridge Faculty of Classics. Her academic thesis - “Displaying Greece in the British Museum in the Era of Decolonisation” - built further on this activism. She is now excited to start as a PhD student in the USA and to serve her new families of Fulbrighters, the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, and the wider New York University community.

Mario Carandente

Entrepreneurship Award, MIT - Business

Mario's aspirations to make an impact in our society with technology and innovations have been the key drivers for him to undertake a career in engineering. Driven by enthusiasm for research and desire to specialize in automotive engineering, he has earned an Engineering Doctorate from WMG – University of Warwick. During his doctorate, Mario worked on a research project sponsored by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) developing a new methodology for the design and assembly of lightweight vehicles. Mario has built his career in the automotive industry with experience ranging from R&D and product development, to manufacturing operations and programme management. Since 2018, he has been working at McLaren automotive leading the design and engineering workstreams of body components across all the vehicle platforms. Driven by the compelling need to make our planet sustainable, Mario is motivated to take on a leadership role driving sustainable transformations in urban mobility. The Fulbright Entrepreneurship Award will allow him to undertake a Sloan Fellows MBA at MIT focussing on the technological and infrastructural innovations that will be at the forefront of the future of mobility and transportation.

Christopher Carter

Postgraduate Student Award at the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs - Environmental Policy

The scientific consensus is overwhelming: climate change is real and it is an urgent threat. Having spent four years studying Geophysics at Imperial College London, Chris is acutely aware of the scientific basis for anthropogenic climate change and is frustrated with what he perceives as a lack of political courage among governments and other bodies reluctant to enact necessary and achievable changes to safeguard our planet’s future. Chris is approaching the Fulbright programme and his Master’s degree in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy with that mindset; he hopes to translate his scientific background to real, workable policy solutions that can be implemented on local and global scales to protect our planet and limit the impacts of our past inaction. Chris’ undergraduate career was a time of great personal and professional development; moving to London gave him, for the first time, the opportunity to grow beyond the expectations of others and to define himself on his own terms. He worked throughout his university career to ensure that every student had that same opportunity as part of a strong, inclusive student community and he can’t wait to put those values into action as a Fulbrighter.

Ramana Carthigesan

Lloyd's Postgraduate Award, MIT - Finance

Having grown up in London during the recession of 2008, and more recently having worked as a financial services-focussed strategy consultant, Ramana has seen the outsized effect that the UK’s financial sector has on its people. He is convinced that the key to making this competitive strength for the UK a positive force for the wider population is smarter and more effective regulation that enables a competitive dynamic while still ensuring the public good is served – this will be especially important following Brexit. To this end, Ramana is hugely excited to undertake a Master’s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the home of much of the foundations of financial engineering and host of a world-renowned research group in Systemic Risk. He is keen to apply his quantitative background from studying Physics at Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge to an area where he can positively affect the lives of everyday people across the UK. Outside of the classroom, Ramana is looking forward to getting involved with US sports culture (both as a player and part of the audience) and exploring the country by train.

Karl Dudman

All Disciplines Award, North Carolina State Climate Office - Social Anthropology

Growing up between urban East London and the rural East Midlands, Karl developed a sensitivity to the diverse ways that political identities form across regional, economic and cultural contexts. Deeply interested in the social fragmentation of recent Anglo-American politics, he believes that current democratic processes – in particular the governance of global climate change – must better understand and accommodate that diversity. This is the basis of Karl’s PhD research at Oxford University’s Institute for Science, Innovation, and Society, drawing on professional experiences from community-based environmental management to UN climate dialogues. With support from Fulbright, Karl has partnered with the North Carolina State Climate Office to undertake a year of fieldwork in flood-prone communities of the US southeast. Working alongside climate scientists, community campaigners, and coastal resilience practitioners, Karl will observe how bipartisan, place-based conversations about sea-level rise are being built from the bottom up in the Carolinas. Karl hopes his research will yield valuable lessons for community-led efforts in the UK, and advance our understanding of the complex relationship between local communities and global north climate governance. Passionate about non-academic forms of communication, Karl also hopes to tell the stories of his fieldwork as a writer and photographer. 

Melanie Etti

Nursten Award in Medical Studies, Harvard University - Global Health

Melanie Etti will be completing a Master of Public Health degree with a focus on Global Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her interest in Global Health began during her time as junior doctor where she worked in some of the most culturally diverse areas of London. She is also passionate about infectious diseases, having obtained a BSc in Pathology and Microbiology at the University of Bristol and the RCP Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 2017. In 2020, she took up a research fellowship in Microbiology with St George's, University of London based in Kampala, Uganda where she worked on research projects focused towards improving rates of neonatal sepsis and understanding the spread of COVID-19 among pregnant women. Melanie hopes that her time in Boston will help her gain a wider perspective of solutions for overcoming global challenges in infectious disease control, particularly in resource-limited settings. She is particularly looking forward to enjoying some seafood on the Boston piers during her time in the US. 

Ndakuna Fonso Amidou

Sir Cyril Taylor Memorial Award for Social Entrepreneurship, Harvard University - Public Administration

Ndakuna started his career as a mental health nurse. He later studied Engineering, while working full-time, night shifts, to fully fund his education at Brunel University. Ndakuna has also completed MSc and MBA programmes at Oxford University, led global projects and teams, and worked across five industries (Telecom, Healthcare, Automobile, Construction and Government), while building a chain of self-sustaining healthcare clinics in parallel, for the last 14 years. Ndakuna intends to both contribute and learn from the Harvard University community, offering the lenses of a nurse, engineer, and social entrepreneur to various discussions such as mental health and data privacy. While not policy-oriented, these are areas of knowledge a policy-maker must have. Data privacy is today a human right issue, and Ndakuna hopes to use the MCMPA to understand end-to-end value creation in the policy design process, as well as build a network of UK and US organisations involved in data transfer, to establish a collaborative data privacy environment. One of Ndakuna's ambitions (post-Harvard) is to found a data privacy think tank in the UK.

Toby Frampton

British Friends of Harvard Business School MBA Award - Business Administration

Toby graduated from the University of Oxford with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography. For the past three years, he has worked for the consumer goods company Procter & Gamble in various Sales and Brand Management roles. He joined the company in Sales as a National Account Manager working with the UK’s largest retailer Tesco, before progressing into Brand Management, where he has most recently worked as a Senior Brand Manager in the company’s Oral Care division (Oral-B™, Crest™ and Fixodent™). At Harvard Business School, Toby will be studying for an MBA with a General Management focus. He is especially interested to learn from real-world practice and develop his knowledge in areas outside of his Sales and Marketing specialism, including in Finance and Supply Chain. When he is not studying, Toby plans to explore Boston and travel throughout the US as much as possible. He is an avid skier and hopes to enjoy much of the varied skiing the US has to offer.

Jennie Graham

Sir Cyril Taylor Memorial Award for Social Entrepreneurship, Duke University - Entrepreneurial Studies

Jennie grew up in Milnathort, Scotland, and graduated from the University of Oxford with a First Class degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies. Passionate about advancing gender equity, she volunteered for an interfaith organisation in Amman, Jordan, and helped to launch the Women for Coexistence initiative, an open forum bringing together women of all faiths to discuss coexistence and promote cross-cultural understanding. She went on to work with Oxford Entrepreneurs, leading their women’s outreach and building a mentorship programme for aspiring female entrepreneurs at the university. Most recently, Jennie worked at Turquoise Mountain, a non-profit supporting entrepreneurs in the creative manufacturing and handmade sector, most of whom are women, in Afghanistan, Myanmar, and the Middle East. As Head of Communications, she has supported female artisans and business leaders to market their handmade products worldwide. Jennie is going to Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business to pursue an MBA with a focus on social entrepreneurship and impact investing. She plans to work in impact venture capital, supporting female founders in the social enterprise space. She is a Forté Fellow and former competitive kickboxer, captaining the Oxford University team.

Harun Khan

Nursten Award in Medical Studies, Harvard University - Public Health

Harun is a physician and public health researcher. He graduated from Imperial College London with an MBBS, BSc (First Class Honours) and two academic prizes. He is interested in health inequities, particularly the intersection between health outcomes and social identifiers, such as race, social class, and immigration status. Harun has worked in a research capacity for several institutions including London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the World Health Organization in Geneva. His research and his commentary on race and health has been published extensively and featured on various media platforms such as Audible, Media Diversified and The Huffington Post. A recipient of a joint award from the Kennedy Memorial Trust and the UK Fulbright Commission, Harun will pursue the Master's of Public Health at Harvard University where he will explore policy solutions to health disparities in the UK and USA. He will also develop his qualitative analysis skills for maternal health projects that focus on asylum seeking women in Birmingham, UK. In his own time, Harun enjoys travelling and learning foreign languages. He is keen to use the upcoming year in the United States to improve his proficiency in Spanish - his sixth language.

Marina Kovaleva

Global Wales Visiting Student Award, Sandia National Laboratories - Engineering

Marina found her passion for renewable energy during her undergraduate projects in Mechanical Engineering at Cardiff University, at a time when Cardiff University, Oxford University and SIEMENS were collaborating to develop a one-of-a-kind, £1.5m UK government-sponsored green ammonia power demonstrator. After graduating, Marina spent a year as a research student in ammonia combustion at Tohoku University, through the Japanese MEXT Programme. Her recent travel experience has helped her establish a new, early-career researcher conference in ammonia energy, with the second edition of the event scheduled to be held at Cardiff in the summer of 2022. As a Fulbrighter, Marina will complete part of her PhD at Sandia National Laboratories, California. For her project, she hopes to bridge together the ammonia energy expertise from the UK with high-performance computing and numerical modelling - a known speciality of Sandia National Laboratories. In her free time, Marina enjoys fitness and running, so, while in the US, she would love to try morning dance parties through Daybreaker, as a fun and alternative way to start the workday.

Shayna Lewis

All Disciplines Award, Columbia University - Human Rights Studies

As a daughter of the Windrush generation, Shayna’s parents and grandparents instilled in her the importance of working against the constraints of society to build a better future for those to come. This vision has guided Shayna to her career in human rights. Shayna’s research in the field of transitional justice aims to reposition survivors of human rights atrocities at the centre of accountability processes to ensure that transitional justice responses serve the needs of affected communities. Shayna aims to spend her career working to increase accountability for human rights atrocities from the ground up, helping survivors overcome the injustices they have faced to build a more just future. Since graduating from Exeter University in 2020, she has worked for Human Rights Watch in Geneva, monitoring and speaking at the UN Human Rights Council. In January 2021, Shayna relocated to Asia to research and conduct advocacy on the intersecting impacts of conflict, COVID-19, and climate change in Myanmar. Prior to her international advocacy work, Shayna volunteered with women’s empowerment charities to tackle domestic abuse and help women leaving the criminal justice system to find work. She also contributed to her diaspora through her work with the Jamaican High Commission.

Heena Mohammed

All Disciplines Award, University of Chicago - Public Policy

Through her early experiences as a young woman from an immigrant background in the North of England to studying Politics and International Relations at the University of Manchester, Heena has been inspired by one key objective: using her lived experiences as a woman of colour to influence policymaking to better serve marginalised communities. Through her early career as a civil servant, she has worked on key social issues including welfare, housing, and criminal justice policy. She has worked on the front line at Jobcentres in Manchester and closely with local communities in the aftermath of the Grenfell tower disaster. Having worked on police powers policy in the immediate Covid-19 response and tackling racial disparities in police powers, she is committed to using this experience to explore innovative solutions to eliminating racial disparities in crime and policing policy. Studying Public Policy at the University of Chicago is an ideal opportunity to complement her real-world experience with a grounding in rigorous academic standards, whilst also taking advantage of living in Chicago to engage closely with crime and social policy - whether through the Crime Lab or by working directly with non-profit organisations in the South and West sides of Chicago.

Lynda Nwike

British Friends of Harvard Business School MBA Award - Business Administration

Lynda will be completing a Masters in Business Administration at Harvard Business School and a Masters in Public Administration - International Development at the Harvard John F Kennedy School of Government. Whilst in the US, she aims to join and learn from an international network of change agents focused on enabling greater energy equity, using energy as a means for driving economic development whilst navigating the challenges of climate change. A creative at heart, Lynda was first inspired by a career in the energy industry at the age of 14 when she attended an “Energy Challenge” in Scotland. Inspired by the scope, impact, challenges and possibilities in the industry, she later received an Arkwright Engineering Scholarship and went on to receive a first class degree in Mechanical Engineering at King’s College London. She has worked across the globe for oil and gas companies including ExxonMobil, Schlumberger and Royal Dutch Shell in roles spanning Public & Government Affairs, Engineering & Operations and Coaching. During this time, she acted as Chair of the Europe, Russia and Israel Student Operating Board of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and as a STEM mentor, ambassador and advocate with the Arkwright Trust.

Bella Okuya

All Disciplines Award, The New School - Photography

Bella is a London born and based photographer and educator, with a socially engaged documentary approach and a curious portraiture practice. Most of her work presents ongoing personal projects. She has a BA in English Literature, a PGCE from the University of London, and a City & Guilds Diploma in photo image making.​​​​​​​ Her research interests include exploring contemporary documentary practice and working with underrepresented communities using participatory photography. She will be exploring this on the MFA Photography programme at Parsons School of Design, New School, New York.

Morwenna Osmond

Global Wales Postgraduate Award, The New School - Modern History

Morwenna was raised in the coastal town of Penarth in Wales. Educated bilingually in Welsh and English, she is passionate about the survival and flourishing of minority languages. At 15, she was awarded a scholarship to the United World College of Costa Rica, where she joined a community of 170 students from over 70 countries. Later she studied History at Bristol University, graduating with first-class honours. She is fascinated by histories of social movements and contentious politics. Her final-year dissertation explored the relationship between the Indigenous women leaders of the Red Power movement and the second-wave feminist movement in the US from the 1960s to the 1980s. Subsequently, Morwenna joined the Warrior Women Project, a group of activists, historians and multimedia storytellers who collect oral histories recording Indigenous matriarchy and movement building. During her time studying an MA in Historical Studies at the New School for Social Research, New York, Morwenna aims to deepen her understanding of the dynamics of social movements. She is also keen to explore the role that artists can have in affecting community change. Outside of her studies, Morwenna is eager to explore upstate New York’s hiking trails.

Genevieve Ryan

All Disciplines Award, University of Houston - Social Work

Genevieve is from Leeds and has an undergraduate degree from the University of Edinburgh in History & History of Art and an MSc from the London School of Economics in Criminal Justice Policy, for which she received the university’s Titmuss and Delia Ashworth prizes for outstanding achievement. As a Fulbrighter, Genevieve will undertake a Master’s of Social Work at the University of Houston, Texas. She is interested in forensic social work, mitigation and different forms of justice. She plans to concentrate her studies on Defense-Initiated Victim Outreach (DIVO), a restorative initiative used in a number of states across the US and predominantly in capital cases. Studying in Houston, Genevieve will have access to specialist trauma modules, a legislative internship and a field practicum which will further develop her awareness of the setting in which DIVO operates. She expects that the time she spends stateside will provide a fresh perspective on state systems and will inform the doctoral study she intends to undertake examining the DIVO initiative in a UK context. Whilst studying in Texas Genevieve is excited to visit the rodeo, go on road trips and is looking forward to enjoying live bluegrass and country music.

Rhea Saksena

All Disciplines Award, Harvard University - Global Health

Rhea is an NHS medical doctor and a passionate health advocate. She is particularly interested in the way global health structures intersect and contribute to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and obesity prevalence worldwide. She graduated from UCL with First Class Honours in Global Health where she was also nominated for the Faculty of Life Sciences Medal for her dissertation analysing obesity policies in the UK. She has also worked for Public Health England design and implement strategies to reduce childhood obesity. Rhea is currently training as an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Oxford, a role which enables her to continue to develop both her clinical and academic interests in obesity and diabetes. Rhea is thrilled to undertake the Masters in Public Health (MPH) programme at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health where she will develop the skills and understanding required to design health systems that ensure that a high standard of health is a certainty for all and not a privilege for a lucky few. 

Sarah Santhosham

Executive Master of Public Administration Award at NYU Wagner - Economic and Political Development

Sarah is an HM Treasury official passionate about solving complex global public policy challenges through stronger international collaboration, greater interdisciplinary work and a better understanding of the impact on citizens. As a former community organiser and MP’s caseworker in an inner-city London borough where she grew up, she has seen the impacts of short-term policies on people’s lives and long-term outcomes, and is motivated by a desire to improve policymaking. Tackling tough international, economic and social policy challenges across the UK and in Brussels – including negotiating across the G20 to mitigate COVID-19’s impact – has given her an understanding of the impact of global dynamics on citizens, and the importance of nuanced social policies to improve resilience. She is excited to spend a year at NYU and UCL to learn about new policy ideas from expert practitioners, form a network of public servants from diverse cultures, and reflect on ways to use her experience to make an impactful contribution to policy making, with a particular focus on addressing regional inequalities. Sarah completed her undergraduate degree in Classics at Oxford University, where she was elected Vice President of the student union.

Sadaf Sohrabi

All Disciplines Award, Harvard University - Dermatopathology

Healing skin leaves scars. We have all experienced this throughout our lives but in serious cases, such as burns, skin can heal with large contractures impairing breathing. Wounds can even fail to heal at all – leaving patients with chronic infections, limb amputations, and even death. As an academic surgical trainee working in Edinburgh, Sadaf has sought to investigate the mechanisms behind skin wound healing using human scar and Dupuytren’s disease tissue. She will join the highly collaborative and world leading Harvard Stem Cell Institute dermato-pathology research group to investigate why our skin heals by scarring, and better understand the mechanisms which can go awry in skin regeneration. Beyond the lab, Sadaf is looking forward to experiencing the New England way of life, immersing herself in the community, and lending her jazz saxophone skills to the local jazz band.

Megan Spoor

All Disciplines Award, Tulane University - Architecture

Megan is an architectural assistant passionate about climate change adaptation and community-focused design. Born and raised in the Welsh Valleys, Megan's decision to enter the field of architecture was driven by a desire to help low-income communities like her own. After graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Nottingham, Megan worked in Australia and the UK on affordable housing and low-carbon construction. Megan has also collaborated on a Cyclone-proof housing prototype for communities in the South Pacific, contributed to research in sustainable design, and is currently part of a charity striving to support locally-led development in Vanuatu. These experiences exposed her to the impact climate change will have on low-income communities globally, instilling a passion to act. Tulane offers Megan an exciting opportunity to study in a city at the forefront of climate change and work directly with communities challenged by rising sea levels in New Orleans, India, and Ethiopia. She hopes to use her degree to develop inclusive adaption strategies that can be implemented globally, prioritising those most at risk. She is excited to experience the vibrant culture of New Orleans and plans to become involved with the University equestrian team.

Cian Wade

All Disciplines Award, Harvard University - Health Policy and Management

Cian has always been drawn to projects with ambitious aims of improving the quality of patient care and population health. Whilst at school, he founded a charity which raised significant funds for a children’s heart unit. An eclectic range of sporting, academic and even theatrical experiences whilst at medical school further honed his skills in drawing together and leading groups of talented individuals towards achieving complex goals. He led an international research group which designed and implemented Kenya’s first neonatal analgesic guidelines, exemplifying the collaborative approach required to ensure that medical evidence and guidelines actually translate into improved patient care. Working on the clinical frontline and in national healthcare organisations during the COVID-19 pandemic, Cian has a clear appreciation for how good leadership and strategy can impact upon the nation’s health. Whilst at Harvard, Cian hopes to progress his work into understanding why some patients are at higher risk of harm from healthcare than others, and how we can act to reduce these inequalities. Having previously led the University of Oxford football team on a tour of Ivy League schools, he is also looking forward to playing some more “Soccer” whilst at Harvard.  

Fatima Wardy

Fulbright-BAFTA Postgraduate Scholarship, University of Texas at Austin - Film Production

Fatima is a writer and director who works across both fiction and non-fiction mediums.  Her career started as video journalist at BBC News, where she made it her mission to increase the number of stories commissioned about black British life. From there, she transitioned to documentary production at BBC Studios, where she got to work on the landmark film 'Whoever Heard of a Black Artist?', introducing audiences to the criminally overlooked artists of African, Caribbean and Asian descent who shaped modern British art. At the University of Texas at Austin, Fatima will further hone her writing and directing skills to produce films that illustrate the complexity of immigrant experiences. Fatima draws inspiration from her Sudanese heritage, especially the oral storytelling traditions of the Nubian tribes of her grandparents. She is passionate about imaging the interior life of black British Muslim girls through her stories because "the level of representation we get compared to how funny we are is not high enough!" In her spare time, she looks forward to becoming an expert on Mexican cuisine and finding out what exactly keeps Austin weird.

Orkun Akseli

Elon University Award, Elon University - Commercial Law

Orkun is an Associate Professor of Commercial Law at Durham University Law School. He has published extensively on the modernisation and harmonisation of secured transactions law. His research has focused on the laws relating to secured credit, and the social and economic impact of these laws with reference to the financing of SMEs. He studied law in Turkey and the United States before completing his PhD at the University of Manchester. He is excited for the opportunity provided by the Fulbright Commission to spend time doing research and teaching at Elon University Law School. His research will be on the influence of the UCC Article 9 on international secured transactions law texts that aim to modernise national laws. He is a keen runner and foodie as well as have a keen interest in history. He hopes to explore North Carolina and the South during his time in the USA.

Joerg Arnscheidt

All Disciplines Scholar Award, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee - Environmental Sciences

Joerg’s fascination with water chemistry and aquatic biology started with a makeshift laboratory and aquariums and the garden pond of his parental home. Dedicated academics in Düsseldorf and in Dresden further nurtured this interest in aquatic sciences. After a PhD on acidification he first worked in commercial water analysis and is now a senior lecturer at Ulster University’s School of Geography and Environmental Sciences with research interests in water quality and aquatic ecology.

As a water scientist, he is looking forward to the opportunity of spending time at the Great Lakes in Sandra McLellan’s laboratory at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, where he wants to investigate methods of monitoring faecal water pollution with bacterial sediment markers. He also intends to get involved with Milwaukee’s volunteer organisations in freshwater conservation and the support of people with Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) for a transatlantic sharing of experience.

Henry Birt

Lloyd’s Scholar Award, Pennsylvania State University - Agriculture

Just as humans make associations with ‘good bacteria’ in their gut, plants too form important connections with microbes that influence their health. Henry investigates these relationships within agricultural systems to find new ways we can produce food sustainably. As a Fulbright Scholar at The Microbiome Center at The Pennsylvania State University, Henry will investigate how microbes interact with plants at the end of a drought period and how this could influence climate change in the future. At Penn State, Henry will have access to long term experimental sites, world-class analytical equipment, and some of the best research minds in the field. Henry’s research career has had international collaboration at its core. From the Atlantic Rainforest of Brazil to banana production on the doorstep of The Great Barrier Reef in Australia, exchanging ideas internationally has been the lifeblood of much of Henry’s work. In Pennsylvania Henry is keen to experience the rich culture: from the college football atmosphere at Penn State, to Amish farming techniques.

Daniel Cash

All Disciplines Scholar Award, New York University's Stern Business School - Business Law

Daniel is a Senior Lecturer at Aston University’s Law School. He exclusively researches the Credit Rating Industry and its regulation, operation, and impact upon the financial sector. He has founded the Credit Rating Research Initiative, bringing together leading voices in the field to push for a better environment within the sector. Daniel has also founded Aspiring Black Lawyers, an initiative designed to address the distinct underrepresentation of Black and Mixed-Heritage people in the legal sector by working with students and connecting them to specialists who can aid their development. At New York University’s Stern Business School, Daniel aims to establish the new credit rating initiative and develop a field-leading textbook on the credit rating field. By bringing together some of the world’s leading scholars and practitioners, the book will hopefully form a bridge between the field in the US and the UK. That bridge will be developed to inspire impactful collaboration in particular fields, like finding credit-rating based resolutions to global issues such as the debt renegotiation standstill affecting the world’s most vulnerable countries. Daniel will be exploring different areas of the US to learn about its deep history.

Rebecca Charlton

All Disciplines Scholar Award, The George Washington University - Adult Development & Aging

Rebecca completed her PhD examining the associations between changes in the brain and cognitive abilities in middle-aged and older adults. Several years ago a conversation with a friend raised the question “What happens to autistic people when they get older?” Realising that we know very little about ageing for autistic people, Rebecca has since been working to answer that question. Most researchers investigating autism focus on childhood development. Rebecca brings her expertise on ageing, age-related changes and disorders to ask questions about ageing and autism. As a Fulbright Scholar, Rebecca will be working with colleagues at the George Washington University for four months. Combining expertise in ageing with expertise in autism and developmental trajectories, Rebecca will examine the relationship between cognitive abilities, physical and mental health across the adult lifespan. Rebecca can often be found hiking on the South Downs and is looking forward to exploring the countryside around Washington. She’s also hoping to visit the Kennedy Centre and the Library of Congress.

Stuart Dunmore

Royal Society of Edinburgh Scholar Award, Harvard University - Socio-Lingiustics

Stuart is a research fellow at the University of Sussex, and also at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on the sociolinguistics of minority language use, ideology, and cultural identities, with particular reference to Celtic language communities in Britain and Canada. In 2019 his first book 'Language Revitalisation in Gaelic Scotland' was published, while his British Academy postdoctoral fellowship (2016-19) assessed the role of 'new' speakers in language learning initiatives and policy interventions in Scotland and Nova Scotia. Stuart’s Fulbright research will build on this work to examine social networks of Scottish Gaelic speakers and learners among the Nova Scotia diaspora community in Boston, and how such speakers' learning motivations and identities may compare to the better known Boston Irish diaspora. This research will inform chapters of his second monograph with Edinburgh University Press. During his scholarship Stuart will be working with distinguished colleagues in Celtic at Harvard University. He also hopes to have some time to indulge his passions for (ice) hockey and rowing.

Alison Eardley

Smithsonian Scholar Award, The Anacostia Community Museum - Cultural Psychology

Alison is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Westminster. She will be working with the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum on a project exploring place-identity, belonging, memory, and the relationship between the museum and its local communities. What is surprising about this project is not that a cognitive psychologist is a Fulbright-Smithsonian scholar, but rather that more psychologists are not already working within museums. Alison’s research on attention, multisensory processing, mental representation and memory can enrich sector-wide understandings of visitor experience and audience engagement. Nevertheless, Alison has learnt that whilst scientists and museums may share some common language and goals, their respective understandings are often underpinned by different meaning and assumptions. This project provides her with the opportunity to understand museums and the US from within. In so doing, Alison’s interdisciplinary lens will provide important insights into longstanding and new museum sector goals: serving communities, democratising decision making on museum narratives, broadening participation, enhancing access, and redefining museums in the 21st century.

Nicola Guess

All Disciplines Scholar Award, Johns Hopkins/Tufts University/Good Food Institute - Clinical Nutrition

Nicola is a registered dietitian and academic. Her research looks at the role of high protein diets in the maintenance of good health. Historically, people have gotten most of their protein from animal protein, which has a detrimental impact on the environment compared to other foods. A key question moving forward is whether we can meet our protein requirements sustainably. During her Fulbright, Nicola will spend time at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Tufts University in Boston, and at the non-profit Good Food Institute. The overall aim of her project is to ensure that the sustainable protein sector can meet the growing needs of consumers into the future. The strength of spending time in multiple institutions is that sustainable food is truly a multi-sector issue and will require collaboration between the agricultural, climate science, food technology, production, food service, and nutrition science communities. On her return to the UK, Nicola intends to continue working with her new collaborators to help guide UK industry, food policy and nutrition science towards a more sustainable future. Nicola is fascinated with US political history and is looking forward to visiting the multiple museums and historical sites around Baltimore, Washington DC and Boston.

Katherine Harrison

Smithsonian Scholar Award, National Air and Space Museum - Mass Communications

Katherine is Senior Lecturer in Media in the School of Cultural Studies and Humanities at Leeds Beckett University. She completed her Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded PhD in Visual Culture at Lancaster University, during which time she was a visiting researcher at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. As a Fulbrighter, she returns to Washington to investigate the visual culture of the 20th-century Space Age using the archives and expertise of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. She is particularly interested in imagery of Planet Earth produced from an ‘outside’ perspective by astronauts and space technologies, and its influence on public understandings of the ‘home planet’. The archival research is part of a wider project that interrogates the visual culture of the emerging 21st-century Space Age; an era in which commercial spaceflight operators have begun to generate privatised perspectives back on Earth and out into the cosmos. These privileged perspectives have the potential to shape future understandings of our collective ‘home planet’ and its status as a place of return or merely a place of origin. While in the USA, Katherine hopes to visit the Kennedy Space Center to see a rocket launch.

Joshua Hollands

Elon University Award - U.S. History

Josh is a historian of the United States, specialising in the study of sexuality, political economy, and social movements. He completed his doctorate at UCL’s Institute of the Americas in 2019, where he is now a lecturer in US history. His research considers the history of homophobic workplace discrimination in the US South and Southwest and the movements that arose to challenge this discrimination. Josh’s research seeks to understand the role of the workplace in the rapid expansion of LGBTQ rights over the past two decades. Prior to his doctorate, Josh completed an MA in US history and politics at UCL and received a BA in American Studies from the University of Hull. At Elon, a university committed to engaged and experimental pedagogies, Josh will be teaching classes in US and LGBTQ history. He will also undertake research for his next project which is a history of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain. As a historian of the US South, Josh is looking forward to a traveling through the region for both research and leisure. He is particularly keen to sample some of the region’s many craft breweries, as well as the South’s distinctive cuisine.

Daniel Hughes

All Disciplines Scholar Award, University of Texas at Austin - Modern Literature

Daniel is an alumnus of Bangor University, where he graduated with a PhD in English Literature in 2018. Daniel is also a recipient of the M Wynn Thomas New Scholar’s Prize, which recognises outstanding early-career contributions to the study of Welsh Writing in English. Austin’s Harry Ransom Center is actually home to the largest collection of Welsh literature outside the UK, and Daniel will be utilising these collections as he develops a monograph on Welsh modernist writing. Daniel will teach a course on Modern Welsh Literature in English at UT Austin, and will also give a series of public lectures on the same topic.

Daniel hopes to raise the international profile of Welsh literature and culture during his Fulbright. Daniel is also especially excited to experience South by Southwest, and plans to support the Texas Longhorns during his 12-month stay in Austin.

Ashok Kar

Royal College of Surgeons Research Award, Stanford University - Thoracic Surgery

Ashok is a trainee cardiothoracic surgeon in London and is passionate about improving outcomes for lung cancer patients. Inspired as a teen by the sequencing of the human genome project, he studied Medicine at the University of Cambridge and completed a Natural Sciences Degree in Genetics with research into cell cycle signalling. Twenty years later and after operating on hundreds of cancer patients, he believes that advancing our understanding of the fundamental biology of cancer can drive innovation in surgery. As a Fulbrighter, he will spend three months at Stanford under the supervision of Thoracic Surgeon, Professor Joseph Shrager. He will pursue inter-disciplinary translational research in collaboration with Dr Maximilian Diehn’s lab who have pioneered a novel liquid biopsy technique to detect circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) in lung cancer. Ashok is excited to undertake research trying to determine a scientific basis for how oncological surgery is performed. He grew up in Scotland and enjoys the great outdoors and is looking forward to exploring California and immersing himself in American culture.

Ella Marriott

Metropolitan Police Scholar Award, Tulane University - Police, Law Enforcement & Corrections

Ella Marriott completed her degree in History at Royal Holloway, University of London. Whilst there, she won a Junior Year Scholarship to Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Her scholarship studies and travel cemented her lifelong interest in the USA. After graduating, Ella joined the Metropolitan Police Service in London. Now a senior detective, she has worked across many policing areas, including rape investigation, counter-terrorism, firearms and professional standards. Her current role is in Frontline Policing at North Area, covering the London Boroughs of Haringey and Enfield. Ella is returning to Tulane University to research how the US is addressing its history of slavery, segregation and disproportionality in the criminal justice system. She will be complementing this research with meeting operational police officers and human rights advocacy organisations. Her aim is to identify opportunities for the Metropolitan Police Service to present its history and those of its communities, to improve understanding of the impact of shared experiences on today’s policing response in London.

Rachel Rolph

Royal College of Surgeons Research Award, MD Anderson Houston - Surgical Technology

Rachel has devoted her life to medicine to make a substantive difference to those in need. Her aim is to provide patient care at the highest level through research by harnessing advances in surgical technology to define the benchmark in her chosen speciality, breast cancer surgery. Rachel studied at University of Oxford and UCL. Her personal achievements include double first-class degrees and a Scholarship from Oxford. Her clinical training provided experience in plastic and breast cancer surgery in major training centres within the UK. Rachel believes that the future of surgery is assessing innovative technologies to move the field of breast surgery forward for patient benefit. Minimally invasive surgery has been adopted in other surgical fields however is yet to be translated into breast surgery in the UK. As a Fulbrighter, Rachel plans to visit major centres in the US which have developed clinical trials into robotics in breast surgery. Her main focus will be at MD Anderson, Houston, the largest cancer hospital in the US. She is excited to study both the professional and institutional learning curves and patient outcomes associated with this new technique assessing its applicability in the UK healthcare system.

Yusrah Shweikh

All Disciplines Scholar Award, Harvard University - Ophthalmology

Yusrah Shweikh is a consultant ophthalmologist based at the Sussex Eye Hospital. She is the co-founder and director of Eye Heroes, which is an award-winning national initiative to raise awareness about eye health in the UK. She specialises in the medical and surgical management of glaucoma and has completed two surgical glaucoma subspecialist fellowships at the internationally renowned Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. In addition to clinical work, Yusrah has active interests in research and training. Her major current interest is in avoidable blindness. In her spare time she enjoys volunteer work in West Africa where she recently delivered a trabeculectomy training course. Yusrah is looking forward to working with her collaborators at Harvard University on enhancing glaucoma risk prediction using genetic analysis and machine learning.

Sara Adkins

Queen Mary, University of London Postgraduate Award - Computer Science

Sara Adkins is a music technologist, guitarist and software engineer from Baltimore, Maryland. She graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2018 with an interdisciplinary bachelor's degree in music technology and computer science. Sara has spent the past three years working as a Machine Learning Engineer at Bose, developing deep learning models for speech enhancement and adaptive audio content for sleep. Sara is passionate about promoting the use of machine learning and AI in the creative arts. During her time at CMU, she premiered three electronic compositions that showcased collaboration between human performance and generative music algorithms. She plans to continue this line of research at Queen Mary's Center for Digital Music, developing software systems that generate music alongside musicians in real time to create artificially-intelligent “performance partners”. She is excited to work with local musicians in London, designing new interfaces that make algorithmic composition and generative music more accessible. Sara is also looking forward to playing guitar in Irish music sessions, exploring London by bicycle, and enjoying great tea.

Sara Alavi

SOAS, University of London Postgraduate Award - Anthropology

Sara graduated from Brown University where she earned a BA with honours in Health and Human Biology on the social context of health and disease track. She developed an interdisciplinary interest in the intersections of social justice, healthcare, and community wellbeing. She earned the George W. Hagy Prize in Human Biology, awarded to a graduating student for their embodiment of the interdisciplinary spirit of the Human Biology program at Brown. Her honours thesis centred the perspectives of Community Health Workers and Peer Recovery Specialists who share lived experiences such as incarceration, substance use, and mental illness with their clients. This project was carried out in partnership with the Lifespan Transitions Clinic, a clinic providing holistic, relationship-centred care for formerly incarcerated people. During her Fulbright at SOAS, she hopes to apply her learning to the study of the cultural underpinnings of approaches to community wellbeing in communities marginalized by Western medical systems. Sara is excited to learn more about NHS care after custody programming for formerly incarcerated patients in the UK. As an avid reader, tea-lover, baker, and appreciator of nature, she is overjoyed to explore the libraries, cafés, and green spaces of London and the rest of the UK.

Emma Belanger

All Disciplines Postgraduate Award, University of Birmingham - Chinese Studies

Emma was born in Nykøbing Sjælland, Denmark, and grew up in Denmark, Greece, and the US. Her multicultural childhood shaped her interest in foreign languages and cultures from a very young age. She began learning Mandarin and Russian in high school and college, spending her junior year abroad in Yaroslavl, Russia and Beijing, China. She graduated magna cum laude from Hamilton College with a BA in Chinese and Russian Studies. While teaching English at an immigration services non-profit in Philadelphia, Emma became particularly interested in the question of cultural preservation within immigrant communities. She received a Fulbright Award to research the Russian immigrant community in Harbin, China. But, unable to go to China, she tweaked her research project to take place in the UK instead. Her new project will explore the history and development of Chinese immigrant communities in Birmingham and the broader UK. She hopes to get to know members of these communities and hear their stories during her research. Emma knows that she will feel at home in the UK, as she is a huge Premier League fan, and is looking forward to exploring the beautiful city of Birmingham.

Jessica Bond

University of Sussex Postgraduate Award - Journalism

Jess Bond has had a passion for journalism since she picked up her first magazine at the age of 5. Ultimately, this led her to obtain her BA in Journalism at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication, graduating cum laude in 2020. As a Chicago native, Jess has had an interest in understanding the role media plays in shaping marginalized communities' identity in society. She will be pursuing her MA in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex. Her intended master’s thesis will focus on Black British women during the second-wave feminist movement and how they utilized alternative media sources to spread awareness on social issues they were impacted by. Besides getting involved with on-campus media outlets, Jess is excited to explore Brighton’s fashion and music scene, while traveling to London when she can. Upon completing her MA, she intends to become an international journalist focusing on the intersection of race and gender.

Ashley Brunson

University of Southampton Postgraduate Award - Genetics

Ashley graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of South Carolina with a BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2021. She conducted research in the fields of both biochemistry and public health during her time at the University of South Carolina. This, combined with her studies of biochemistry and molecular biology, have prompted Ashley’s interest in research pertaining to the manifestation of cancer from a molecular and genomic level to a societal level. Ashley will attend the University of Southampton as a Fulbrighter in pursuit of an MSc in Genomic Medicine. Through this program, Ashley will learn how to utilize highly integrated sources to interpret complex genomic data in a manner that promotes efficacious translation into a clinic setting. Following the completion of the master’s program, Ashley will return to the US to pursue a Doctorate of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. 

Noah Bryant

Bangor University Postgraduate Award - Archaeology

Noah is from Forsyth County, Georgia and graduated from the University of North Georgia in 2021 with a B.A. in History with and minor in Anthropology. Noah will be attending Bangor University in Bangor, Wales to pursue a MA in Celtic Archaeology focusing on the 3D replication of Celtic artifacts found in Bangor University’s collections. Noah has always been drawn History and Archaeology and serves as president of his university’s History Club and Student Archaeology society. During his leadership, the group undertook a project to 3D scan and digitize some of the artifacts within the collection of the History, Anthropology, Philosophy department at UNG. Noah hopes this experience will benefit him as he pursues his project at Bangor University. Noah also served as first Chair for the Student Senate as part of a new student government design adopted by the university. As a first-generation student, Noah worked alongside other students to form the Alpha Omicron chapter of the academic honor society Alpha Alpha Alpha, a society reserved for first-generation students. Being a first-generation student, Noah pursued every opportunity available, including Fulbright, where he hopes his unique background will help him broaden his understanding of the world around him.

William Byram

Trinity Laban Postgraduate Award in Music & Dance - Dance

William Byram, born in Jackson, Mississippi, graduated from the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College in 2020 with a BFA in Dance. During his time at Purchase, he choreographed the first large-scale collaboration between the Conservatories of Music and Dance for the mainstage opera production of Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas. This production received 2nd place in the 2020 National Opera Association Competition. His work has been performed at Dancers Responding to AIDS and Jazz Choreography Enterprises. This summer, he will be presented at the Battery Dance Festival in downtown NYC. William will pursue an MFA in Choreography at Trinity Laban. His proposed thesis project will be a movement theater piece focused on male fragility and aggression, exploring how they manifest in the body. The narrative for the work is adapted from a 1999 Human Rights Watch interview on men’s experiences with sexual assault. He also hopes to learn about British etiquette and discover the similarities between his Southern upbringing and culture. Upon return to the U.S., William plans to pursue a career in higher education dedicated to deconstructing gender in the classical arts and as a movement director/choreographer committed to access and exposure to the arts in the American South.

Anne Cardenas

Global Wales Postgraduate Award, Swansea University - Oral History

Anne, of Valrico, Florida, is an oral historian and audio producer. After graduating from Florida State University in 2011, Anne worked in the Obama White House in the Office of Presidential Correspondence, responding to letters and gifts sent to the First Family. At the Department of Homeland Security, she coordinated the Secretary’s travel and briefed him during domestic and international trips, including an eye-opening visit to a refugee camp on the Turkey-Syria border. Anne’s lifelong love for history and interest in human rights and storytelling led her to the field of Oral History. Fuelled by her passion to record and preserve important stories, Anne received her Master of Arts degree in Oral History from Columbia University in 2020. At Swansea University, Anne will be working toward a Masters by Research in History. She will be conducting oral history interviews with Kindertransport survivors who settled in Wales prior to World War II and researching the history of the Kindertransport in Wales. She is honored to help archive and preserve this piece of Welsh history. When she’s not interviewing, Anne is looking forward to exploring the legendary walking trails in the Welsh countryside and finding her favorite local pub.

Carolyn Carper

Royal Veterinary College Postgraduate Award - One Health

Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Carolyn recently graduated from Baylor University with a self-designed B.A. in University Scholars, concentrating in Biochemistry and Political Science. After shadowing health professionals in Haiti, Carolyn became deeply interested in pursuing a career in medicine and equipping herself to improve health in undeveloped and developing countries. In college, Carolyn completed a research internship through the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Center of Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine under Dr. Peter Hotez and Dr. Maria Bottazzi. Witnessing that lab’s multidisciplinary approach and widespread impact, Carolyn has since diversified her research skills. She worked in a Biology lab focusing on mosquito surveillance and behavior in Waco, Texas, interned with a local advocacy organization, held a junior staff position with her U.S. Senator, and completed her honors thesis on comparative political development and healthcare in the Caribbean. At the Royal Veterinary College, Carolyn will build upon her background in science and policy by earning a Master’s of Science in One Health. She looks forward to learning from the faculty and researchers at the RVC and later sharing and applying those skills in Medical school and as a healthcare professional.

Alma Chavez

University of Kent Postgraduate Award - Forensic Anthropology

Alma Chavez, of El Paso, Texas, graduated from New Mexico State University in 2017 with a B.A. in Anthropology, Psychology and Foreign Languages, and minor in Forensic Science. Through her coursework in forensic anthropology, as well as her experiences in shadowing physical anthropologists in different countries, she was exposed to human rights issues in skeletal remains. Growing up in the U.S.-Mexico borderland region, Alma noticed a serious security problem for women and undocumented border crossers that has led to their unsuccessful and slow identification. This inspired a passion for researching identification methods in diverse and vulnerable individuals. While at Kent University, Alma will pursue research and development in forensic anthropology, focusing in generating more accurate identification methods to identify diverse group individuals, such as victims of femicide and undocumented border crossers. Alma plans to work with organizations in the UK that provide forensic knowledge to the local/state police. In her free time, she is excited to get involved with the Women’s Basketball Team at her host university. This Fulbright will give her the opportunity to learn how researchers in other countries investigate the recovery and analysis of human remains.

Annie Chen

University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Award - Genetics

Annie graduated summa cum laude with a B.S in Biochemistry from Simmons University, a women-centered university located in the medical research hub of New England. As a first-generation, low-income student, she is passionate about mentoring and teaching the next generation of leaders. At Simmons, Annie was the managing editor for Mindscope Science Magazine, co-founder of Simmons Undergraduate Journal Club, tutor, and mentor for students. Annie has also spent three years studying the mammalian somatosensory neurons and neural circuitry that underlie our sense of touch and completed her senior thesis in the Ginty lab at Harvard Medical School. For her Fulbright grant, Annie will pursue an MSc degree in Quantitative Genetics and Genome Analysis at the University of Edinburgh. She looks forward to volunteering with the FirstHand Lothian and Edinburgh Headway Group, in addition to exploring the beautiful city of Edinburgh. Annie also enjoys illustration and writing and hopes to immerse herself in Edinburgh's artistic and historical community. After her Fulbright experience, Annie will pursue a career involving medicine, science, teaching, and mentorship. This experience will allow her to work on human disorders across national boundaries and provide an international perspective on the emerging advances of genomic technology.

Sydney Clingo

Newcastle University Postgraduate Award - Agriculture

The subtropical oasis of the West Florida coast has nurtured the deep connection Sydney has with the diversity of life around her. While pursuing her B.A. degree in Agroecology and Environmental Studies at New College of Florida, she developed a passion for a unique food system called a forest garden, which became the topic of her undergraduate thesis. Through her research, she discovered that the western idea of these resilient food systems originated in the UK, making it the perfect location to continue her studies. With over 100 forest gardens across the UK, she will have the opportunity to visit several sites to closely examine the relationship forest garden managers have with these diverse systems. She aims to understand the impact different forest garden management styles can have on the long-term sustainability and success of these food systems. She is excited to meet other forest gardeners to learn about the unique practices that have made these systems flourish for decades throughout the UK. Sydney is looking forward to participating in local environmental clean-ups and events, becoming a member of Newcastle University’s environmental and agricultural student clubs, and creating botanical art and illustrations of the native flora.

Hal Conte

University of Warwick Postgraduate Award - Journalism

Hal graduated with a journalism degree from Temple University in 2020. He didn’t expect to go into communications, having gone to high school to study automotive collision repair, but given both his father and grandfather worked in the newspaper industry, perhaps this was inevitable. Hal’s Fulbright research, to be conducted as a student at University of Warwick’s Global Media and Communications programme, will consider the potential of mass media, especially mass newspapers, compared to social media, to advance and anticipate social change. He aims to advance his research afterwards with a PhD. As a journalist at USA TODAY Network, Hal has brought a solutions-oriented approach to social divisions in Pennsylvania, including environmentalists at loggerheads with foresters and Asian-Americans facing coronavirus-related bigotry. Cross-cultural cooperation is one of the things that appealed to Hal about Fulbright in the first place. As an undergraduate, he wrote for Freely Magazine, a publication aiming to unite international students with the rest of the university community. He’s eager to return to the UK after studying in London during summer 2019 and participate in student media and international student groups. When not writing, Hal likes to run and visit libraries and art museums.

Beatrice Dain

Queen's University Belfast Postgraduate Award in Global Security and Borders - Global Security

Beatrice will study at Queen’s University Belfast to earn her MA in Global Security and Borders. As an undergraduate, Beatrice focused on borders, conflict, and migration both in the US and abroad, graduating summa cum laude with a B.S. in International Affairs and Anthropology from Florida State University. She worked south of the US-Mexico border in Guatemala translating archival documents from the Guatemalan civil war and developing educational materials for the Guatemalan Human Rights Ombudsman to better understand past and present reasons for migration to the US. Upon return home, Beatrice conducted missing person reports for families whose loved ones went missing while crossing the US-Mexico border. Her senior thesis took a historical approach to immigration studies, focusing on how the non-profit HIAS used diplomacy to resettle Jewish refugees in Latin America during World War II. At Queen’s, Beatrice hopes to broaden her understanding of borders by observing and analyzing recent UK border changes through a theoretical lens via coursework, a policy lens via border and security experts, and a human lens via citizens who remain testaments to the pain, violence, and reconciliation of the north-south Irish border conflict. In Belfast, Beatrice looks forward to hiking and exploring local bakeries.

Elayna Daniels

University of Exeter Postgraduate Award - Biology

Elayna Daniels, of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, graduated from Davidson College in May 2021 with a B.S. in Environmental Studies. Following a semester spent abroad in the Turks and Caicos Islands during her junior year, Elayna was inspired to pursue marine science at the graduate level. She completed a field research internship with Chicago Zoological Society’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program in the summer of 2020 and is eager to continue her marine studies in the upcoming year. As a graduate of a liberal arts college, Elayna is interested in working with citizen science organizations and is passionate about incorporating different perspectives and disciplines into her marine research. An avid freediver, Elayna is also excited to explore the waters off the Cornish coast as well as experience the unique culture and natural beauty of Cornwall. During her free time, she hopes to go on many walks around the area with her dog, Freddy, and become involved with local dive groups.

Sabrina Delafield

University of Roehampton Postgraduate Award - Dance

Originally from Arizona, Sabrina grew up studying ballet and was awarded a Coca-Cola Scholarship to train with American Ballet Theatre and at the Kennedy Center. After graduating from high school, Sabrina embarked on a decade-long career as a ballerina with the Norwegian National Ballet, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Ballet de L’Opera de Bordeaux, and Deutsche Ballett am Rhein. Dance took Sabrina around the world and exposed her to how international artistic exchange could help foster connection between people. Sabrina's curiosity to explore academically what she had experienced motivated her to study Political Science/IR at Columbia University, graduating in 2021 Summa Cum Laude/Phi Beta Kappa. Outside of academics Sabrina led the Columbia Ballet Collaborative, worked in the office of Undergraduate Global Education, and consulted for Dancersconnect.de. The University of Roehampton’s MA in Dance, Politics, and Sociology will offer Sabrina the ideal program to build on her dance and academic background to research how dance companies are using digital platforms as a new incarnation of global cultural diplomacy. In the UK, Sabrina plans to broaden the Danncersconnect.de platform to include the London dance community and is excited to see the return of live performance to British stages.

Alana Eiland

Imperial College London Postgraduate Award - Public Health

Alana is from New York City and graduated from Yale University in 2021 with a B.A. in History of Science in Medicine. During her time at Yale, she focused her studies on the social and institutional structures that have led to racial health disparities in the United States. As a Fulbright scholar, Alana will be pursuing a Master of Public Health at Imperial College London. Specifically, she hopes to study and compare the racial disparities in maternal mortality both in the US and the UK. With the knowledge that she gains in her master's programme, Alana plans to become a public-health-focussed obstetrician-gynecologist who works to provide equitable healthcare and create effective healthcare policies for marginalized mothers. She is excited to immerse herself in the diverse city of London and work closely with local hospitals.

Tiger Garcia

University of Strathclyde Postgraduate Award - Financial Technology

Trading the iconic Golden Gate Bridge of California’s Bay Area for the historic castles of Glasgow, Tiger is eager to begin life in Scotland. A proud graduate of University of California, Davis, he earned his degree in Managerial Economics while playing Division I Football. Though he began his career as a walk-on, Tiger became Team Captain, starting Defensive Back, and Academic-All American. He balanced his life as a student-athlete while serving as President of Athlete's in Action, a faith-based club on campus. Upon graduation, he moved to Silicon Valley to work for Apple in their Worldwide Finance Department. Shortly after, he married and began working in portfolio management for a boutique investment firm in San Francisco. When he arrived, Penserra managed $3.5 billion, and within 4 months of joining, Garcia helped double that figure to over $7 billion. Scotland’s rapidly growing hub for FinTech start-ups has Tiger especially excited to study Financial Technology at the University of Strathclyde. He looks forward to an unforgettable time learning how automation is transforming the financial sector while traveling on the weekends, competing in intramural sports, making new friends, and embracing the surrounding community.

Anna Bidgood

Fulbright-All Disciplines Scholar - Carnegie Institution for Science, Geoscience and Technology Metals

Anna developed a fascination with remote wilderness landscapes and indigenous communities as a teenager and has spent a great deal of time on both mountaineering and research expeditions as she trained to be a geologist.  Anna is a geoscientist with interests in sustainably-sourced technology metals which are critical for the production of low carbon technologies needed to help decarbonise our society.  

Anna graduated from the University of Oxford in 2020 with a PhD in geology before moving to the SFI Research Centre in Applied Geosciences (iCRAG), where she enjoys working at the interface between academia and industry in a changing society and is passionate about metal extraction being accomplished in an environmental and sustainable way.  

Anna will spend time at the Carnegie Institute for Science in Washington DC where she will be conducting experimental research to determine how the technology metals cobalt and nickel are mobilised and concentrated to aid predictions as to where these metals might be found in nature. Anna is looking forward to visiting the museums around Washington DC, as well as many of the national parks and geological sites in the US, where she hopes to immerse herself through long-distance hikes and biking.

Anna Goorevich

University of Stirling Postgraduate Award - Sport Management

Anna graduated from Franklin & Marshall College with a B.A. in American Studies. During her studies, including a semester abroad in London, Anna was exposed to systemic inequities in sport-access, particularly for women, racial and ethnic minorities, and low-income communities. While at F&M, Anna’s research focused on creating inclusive and empowering spaces for all athletes, no matter their identity. After examining resource inequity found in England’s girl’s football development structures, Anna wrote an honors thesis exploring gender essentialism, heteronormativity, and abusive behavior in normative athletic coaching practices. These research opportunities solidified Anna’s desire to use public policy to increase the accessibility and affordability of sport. At the University of Stirling, Anna will pursue an MSc in Sport Management to investigate the state of Scottish girl’s football opportunities and devise strategies for increased accessibility alongside the Scottish Football Association and SportScotland. As a Fulbrighter, Anna is excited to delve into Scotland’s sporting culture and serve as a community role model through football coaching roles. In her free time, Anna hopes to attend as many Scottish Premiership and Scottish Women’s Premier League matches as possible, explore the Scottish countryside, and try her hand at Scottish Highland Games activities.

Iran Hernandez Imbert

Aston Martin Coventry University Automotive Postgraduate Award - Engineering

The automotive sector is one of the largest contributing factors to global warming. Therefore, Iran is dedicated to working on realistic solutions to target and mitigate this global issue. She graduated from Mercer University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Economics. At Coventry University, she will complete a Master’s in Automotive Engineering. In high school, she interned at the Georgia Institute of Technology and learned how to drive a manual transmission. These two experiences inspired her to pursue a career based on decarbonizing the automotive sector to lean towards clean and sustainable forms of technology. Iran studied abroad in the UK and conducted research at the National Science Foundation at Indiana University. These experiences inspired her to continue her education and research in the UK to be a part of the global commitment for more sustainable forms of energy. Iran is also an avid reader, and enjoys playing soccer, running, and watching movies. She is looking forward to joining the athletics clubs at Coventry and joining other cultural societies. She also hopes to run her first half marathon in the UK.

Mark Hertenstein

University of St. Andrews Postgraduate Award - Theology

Rev. Mark Hertenstein, of Ramer, Alabama, received his B.A. in Classical Studies and Theology from Boston College in 2014 and his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 2017, and is an ordained Presbyterian minister. He will pursue his Ph.D. in Divinity at the University of St. Andrews under the supervision of Professor Christoph Schwöbel. At St. Andrews, Mark’s research will focus on the notion of the presence of God to the world, with a view toward a constructive account of this divine attribute that is attentive to philosophy of science and concept and context of secularism. This will intersect with his interest in the concrete, lived reality and experience of religious people within the particular culture of the U.K. and Scotland. Aside from the long tradition of academic exchange in the field of theology between the United States and United Kingdom, Mark also has a broader interest in British history and the relationship of American culture, government, and religion to their British antecedents. Outside of his intellectual interests, Mark and his wife Susannah look forward to exploring the cities and landscapes of Scotland together, and he is especially keen to try out his golf skills on true Scottish links.

Alison Hight

Global Wales Visiting Student Researcher Award, Bangor University - History

Alison Hight is a PhD candidate in Modern European History at Rutgers University focusing on nineteenth century Britain and Ireland. She is a proponent of the Four-Nations approach to British history, which emphasizes the diverse relationships between England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. The multi-nationality of the United Kingdom and its vast nineteenth century empire is at the heart of her dissertation project, which traces the overlapping development of imperial and Four-Nations identities. Alison is excited to be the first recipient of the Global Wales Visiting Student Researcher Award. She will draw from Bangor University’s archives to trace how the politics of language and higher education galvanized Welsh, British, and imperial perspectives in the late nineteenth century. While on her Fulbright, Alison hopes to learn more about the Welsh language from the region’s vibrant Welsh-speaking community.

Genevieve Hilliard

Global Wales Visiting Student Researcher Award, Swansea University - Biology

Genevieve Hilliard is a PhD candidate at St. Louis University (SLU) in the Department of Biology. During her B.A., M.S., and now PhD at SLU, Genevieve had the chance to work with a wide range of highly qualified scientists in biomedical engineering, immunology, and microbiology. Through these disciplines, Genevieve formulated her PhD dissertation which focuses on the antimicrobial and regenerative properties of Manuka honey embedded wound dressings. She designed part of her dissertation project from the work of Dr. Rowena Jenkins, a professor in the medical school at Swansea University. Genevieve saw the potential of bridging her work with that of Dr. Jenkins and chose to apply for a Fulbright. While at Swansea, Genevieve will conduct an in-depth analysis on the antimicrobial properties of her honey dressings. Along with Dr. Jenkins and many others at Swansea University, she will address the global healthcare challenge of treating infected and/or chronic wounds resulting from diabetes. She looks forward to exploring the scenic Welsh countryside on foot with the mountaineering/climbing clubs at the university. She is also very excited to be part of the unique singing culture of Wales, which boasts some of the world’s best vocal performers.

Emily Ip

University of Sheffield Postgraduate Award - Computer Science

Growing up surrounded by classical music and languages, Emily has always drawn inspiration from the things that bring people together. Majoring in Linguistics and Spanish at Montclair State University as a Chinese-American allowed her to explore her passion for languages and fostered cultural understanding through research and study abroad. A research project she carried out during her semester abroad in Spain nurtured her love of research as a tool for storytelling and engaging with the local community. Upon her return to the United States the following semester, Emily lived with British roommates within Montclair's Global Living Community and developed an ardent admiration of British culture. Through Fulbright, Emily plans to hone her academic and research skills at the intersection of several branches of linguistics at the University of Sheffield, where she will be pursuing an MSc in Computer Science with Speech and Language Processing. She plans on investigating cognitive computational models for the detection of clinical conditions based on language clues with Sheffield's renowned Natural Language Processing Research Group. Beyond the classroom and lab, Emily looks forward to reconnecting with her former British roommates and creating new connections in Sheffield.

Moni Islam

Durham University Postgraduate Award - Archaeology

Moni graduated summa cum laude from George Mason University with a double major in Global Affairs and Anthropology. At Mason, he explored his various interests in archaeology, cultural anthropology, international relations, and the Middle East. Through internships at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and Fairfax County Park Authority, he developed his archaeological skills and in 2019 was awarded the Gilman Scholarship to participate in an archaeological excavation led by the University of Liverpool on the site of Tell Dhiban in Jordan. While there, his passion for archaeology and the Middle East was cemented and, through connecting with his British peers, he began considering postgraduate study in the United Kingdom. At Durham, Moni will pursue an MA in Archaeology, primarily focusing on pre-Islamic Arabia - a largely unexplored yet truly remarkable period of history that has been hidden thus far. He will also focus on cultural heritage, a strength at Durham. While at Durham, he is eager to visit the endless historical sites, beautiful natural scenery, and all things Harry Potter in the United Kingdom.

Mia Jackson

University College London Postgraduate Award - Urban Studies

Mia graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics. During her undergraduate, she developed a deep interest in the intersection of data and technology with health and educational equity. At Yale, she was a teaching assistant for SheCode which introduces middle and high school girls to computer science. She also tutored formerly incarcerated individuals through Columbia University’s Justice Through Code program. Her passion for maternal health led her to develop a prototype for a maternal health mobile app which won second place at a healthcare hackathon at Yale. At UCL, she will be studying at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Using a range of data tools, Mia will examine how urban systems inform health and educational outcomes in areas with high poverty in London. After the Fulbright, she hopes to continue using urban design methodologies to improve health outcomes for vulnerable populations. Mia is looking forward to embracing the British tea culture as well as exploring the art and architecture that London has to offer.

Elizabeth Jones

Royal Holloway, University of London Postgraduate Award - History

Elizabeth Jones, of Mount Vernon, Arkansas, graduated from Hendrix College in 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in History and a minor in German.  During her sophomore year, her work as a Peregrin Scholar of Holocaust Literature and Education through Hendrix College inspired a passion for Holocaust Studies and the promotion of Holocaust Education. Throughout the rest of her time at Hendrix, Elizabeth continued to research the Holocaust through travel experiences, internships, and volunteer work within the Jewish Community of Arkansas. Where better to continue her research than at one of the leading centers for Holocaust Studies in Europe - Royal Holloway, University of London? Royal Holloway values the same interdisciplinary approaches to studying the Holocaust that Elizabeth has found so useful in her previous work. She plans to continue and expand her current research on women’s Holocaust experiences. In addition to her formal research, Elizabeth is eager to engage with her other passions: exploring historical sites around the United Kingdom, taking classes at the Royal School of Needlework, and going to as many West End theatre productions she can. 

Jessica McKean

University of Strathclyde Postgraduate Award - Materials Science

Jessica grew up in the green mountains of Starksboro Vermont and recently graduated cum laude from Villanova University with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and a minor in Biochemical Engineering. She pursued multiple years of research in the field of cellular engineering, seeking to improve gene therapy methods. She spent a semester abroad studying in Rome, Italy as a Gilman Scholar where she rekindled a connection to her creative and artistic drive. There, she developed a deep interest for the little explored interdisciplinary opportunity within the fields of biology, material science, civil engineering, and architecture. McKean will spend her Fulbright year at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland where she will be researching the potential of genetically engineering bacteria to improve a sustainable bio-cement technology. This study will be part of a masters by research degree in Geo-Environmental Engineering within the Civil and Environmental Engineering department. Glasgow is the ideal place to pursue this innovative and interdisciplinary research. McKean is excited to explore the rich scene of contemporary art and architectural design. Following her Fulbright year, McKean will pursue further graduate studies in Architectural Engineering where she hopes to bring creative and sustainable ideas about material science.

Elizabeth Michalenko

University of Nottingham Postgraduate Award - Engineering

Born in Pennsylvania coal country, Elizabeth developed an affinity for exploring and explaining energy. She pursued her interests at the University of Dayton, earning a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and English in 2019. As a writer and an engineer, Elizabeth is interested in developing unique energy solutions and communicating the science to non-scientific audiences. To this end, she earned an MA in Science Writing from Johns Hopkins University in 2021. With internships at home and abroad in the fields of electric power and renewable energy finance, Elizabeth has learned the cross-cultural value of global energy solutions. Post-graduation, she worked in electrical substation design and experienced firsthand how power is traditionally transmitted to consumers. To contribute to solving the growing need for sustainable energy alternatives, Elizabeth will study Electrical Engineering for Sustainable and Renewable Energy at the University of Nottingham. She is eager to learn about innovative energy technologies at one of the top universities for electrical engineering in a country at the forefront of renewable energy proliferation. As a former NCAA athlete, Elizabeth is excited to volunteer with the university’s sports outreach program and join the university’s athletics club.

AnnMarie Moolenaar

London School of Economics and Political Science Postgraduate Award - Military Sciences

Born and raised in Michigan, AnnMarie graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point where she studied International History and Philosophy with a Minor in Middle Eastern Studies. AnnMarie’s academic interests focused on the ethics of war, moral injury in the armed forces, and atrocity prevention. After becoming a Stamps Scholar, AnnMarie explored the dilemmas of conflict resolution in Guatemala, Uganda, Rwanda, and Mexico. She wrote her honor's thesis on the implications of structural violence on just warfare theory evident in the context of the rise in political violence of the PKK in Turkey. She also led efforts to improve mental wellness at West Point as a yoga instructor, peer counselor, and life promotion program director. As a Fulbrighter, AnnMarie will study a MSc in Conflict Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She hopes to develop a nuanced understanding of the conditions needed for effective conflict resolution while minimizing harm during interventions. Following her year in London, AnnMarie will serve in the US Army as a Military Intelligence Officer. AnnMarie hopes to shape the US Army’s approach to armed interventions while bridging the divides between the US armed forces, civilian actors, and foreign partners.

Owen Morrish

University of Birmingham Postgraduate Award - Migration Studies

Owen graduated summa cum laude from The Ohio State University with a BA in Migration Studies and Romance Languages. As an undergraduate, Owen enjoyed serving several refugee resettlement organizations across the US, as well as participating in language immersion programs in both France and Canada. The combination of these experiences inspired him to complete an honors thesis investigating how the practices of ESL instruction used by resettlement organizations today relate to the ability of refugees to integrate effectively. He is also a recipient of the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship, with which he is studying Arabic through the Noor Majan Training Institute in Ibri, Oman. As a Fulbright Student, Owen will be pursuing an MA in Migration Studies at the University of Birmingham. He is excited to take on a more global mindset with his research as he studies how different host countries can best support the linguistic needs of their respective refugee communities. Aside from academics, Owen is looking forward to exploring the entire city of Birmingham and learning more about the rich history and culture of the United Kingdom.

McPherson Newell

All Disciplines Award, University of Leeds - Disability Studies

As a transgender and disabled engineer, McPherson Newell’s work shapes and is shaped by their physical environment. As an undergraduate student at Mercer University, McPherson developed a background in mobility and assistive technology research and local and regional activism. McPherson recognizes the need for engineering education to embrace disability studies principles in order to equitably meet the needs of disabled clients and students alike. They are pursuing an MA in Disability Studies at the University of Leeds to prepare them to further this mission as part of their journey towards an eventual professorship. McPherson’s Master’s thesis will address the access issues faced by individuals at the intersection of disability and transgender identity. While in Leeds, McPherson looks forward to joining the Leeds Disabled People’s Organisation, founded by alumni from the Disability Studies degree programme. They are also excited to engage with the historical home of the Quaker faith tradition and share in community with UK Friends.

Katie Pearce

University of Glasgow Postgraduate Award - Writing

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, Glasgow was in the clutch of violent gang wars. In 2005, it was the murder capital of Europe. In 2019, Glasgow was named the UK’s leading cultural and creative city. Katie was first drawn to Glasgow because of its complex history and emerging creative scene. She graduated from Rollins College in 2019 with an honors bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in creative writing. Her dark, literary stories are driven by the idea ‘make your monsters work for you’ and draw attention to individual, societal, and cultural ‘monsters.’ In the MLitt creative writing program at the University of Glasgow, she will creatively explore modern monsters that haunt Scotland. During her writing career, Katie has been publicly workshopped by Hillary Jordan and National Book Award finalists, Elliot Ackerman and Lisa Ko; proposed and received funding for a student-faculty collaborative study converting an original story into a graphic narrative; presented at a literary conference; completed a creative thesis/short story collection; won collegiate writing awards and scholarships; and was published by Fiction Southeast. She is deeply interested in ever-evolving styles of communication and the unreliability of our perceptions.

Payton Ramsey

Cardiff University Postgraduate Award - Public Health

Ramsey graduated from the University of South Carolina with leadership distinction in diversity and social advocacy in 2021 with a B.S. in Biological Sciences. Beginning in 2018, she began volunteering at a free medical clinic in Columbia, South Carolina. Through this multi-year experience, she connected to many forced-migrants and refugees, many with more severe health conditions than other patients. Ramsey directly experienced the successes and failures of health systems and social support resources by hearing their stories and struggles, eventually propelling her to develop a passion to aid similar populations through the power of healthcare. In her honors thesis project, she put this passion into practice by conducting a comparative research study on the US and Wales in regard to refugee healthcare policy. At Cardiff University, she will pursue an MPH in conjunction with the DECIPHer Institute. Ramsey aims to conduct research that evaluates the relation of specific adversities faced by populations, such as the unique experiences involved in migratory processes and resettlement, to broader healthcare outcomes. As a future medical doctor, Ramsey hopes to apply the frameworks observed in Wales to bolster healthcare and health system improvement. Additionally, she looks forward to exploring the UK’s official “music city”.

Ramya Ravindrababu

UCL Institute of Education Postgraduate Award - Education

Ramya is an Indian American immigrant and grew up in the greater Boston area. A Presidential scholar, she graduated from Boston University with degrees in political science and mathematics. She served in the student government, founded a committee to advocate for student mental health needs, and volunteered at local middle schools teaching a civics & advocacy curriculum. Ramya relocated to Appalachian Eastern Kentucky to better understand the diversity of inequities that students face and help fill a shortage of high school math teachers. As a National Science Foundation Fellow in the Research Experience for Teachers program, Ramya studied how best to implement STEM experiences within a standards-based math curriculum. She was awarded the Early Career STEM Educator award and has served in multiple leadership positions in her district, including Board Member of Teach for America Appalachia. At the Institute of Education, she will study for an MA in Social Justice and Education. She looks forward to studying the systemic barriers that prevent minority and low-income students from receiving a high-quality public education. Outside of the classroom, she is looking forward to exploring London's multi-cultural food scene, participating in South Asian community events, and enjoying the beautiful public parks.