Stanford Report, July 17, 2014

Fulbright Program awards grants to Stanford doctoral candidates and alums

Next year, 11 Stanford students and alumni will fan out across the globe to pursue special projects funded by the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

The program offers grants for graduating seniors, graduate students, young professionals and artists to study abroad for one academic year.

The Stanford contingent, which includes seven alumni and four doctoral candidates, has won fellowships for the 2014-15 academic year. Five of them earned degrees in 2014.

The Stanford students and alumni will travel to nine countries, including Turkey, Spain, India and Indonesia.

They are among the more than 1,900 students, artists and young professionals who have been offered grants to study, teach English and conduct research in more than 140 countries during the upcoming academic year.

A full list of the grantees and their projects is available on the Bechtel International Center's website. The center's Overseas Resource Center administers the Fulbright competition for Stanford.

Stanford's U.S. Fulbright grantees are:

  • Jaimie Adelson, who earned a doctorate in neuroscience in 2014, will research current education and beliefs surrounding the brain and brain injury, and contribute to neuroscience education in Manado, Indonesia.
  • Yassamin Ansari, who earned a bachelor's degree in international relations in 2014, will teach English and serve as a volunteer in a community in Turkey.
  • Elena Ayala-Hurtado, who earned a bachelor's degree in English and sociology in 2014, will devote a year in Spain to teaching and learning more about the culture that has had a major influence on her own Colombian culture.
  • Jason Cieply, a doctoral candidate in Slavic languages and literatures, will conduct archival research on representations of revolutionary enthusiasm in the works of three writers – Vladimir Mayakovsky, Mikhail Zoshchenko and Andrei Platonov – at the Smolny Institute of St. Petersburg in Russia.
  • Jessie Holtzman, who earned a bachelor's degree in human biology in 2014, will assess care utilization with juvenile onset bipolar disorder through interview-based research at the University of Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
  • Katherine Lee, who earned a bachelor's degree in human biology in 2014, will investigate the role of Wnt proteins in kidney regeneration at the Center for Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona, Spain.
  • Allison Mickel, a doctoral candidate in anthropology, will conduct ethnography with the Bedouin living in Petra, Jordan, to assembly an oral history of excavations at Petra over the last 100 years, as well as assess strategies for recording local interpretations of archaeological research.
  • Maia Mosse, who earned a bachelor's degree in human biology in 2014, will implement and evaluate the effectiveness of community health workers training patients in diabetes self-management on the island of Roatan, Honduras.
  • Ben Strauber, a doctoral candidate in neuroscience and a master's candidate in education, will examine how technology is used to educate students in urban and rural West Bengal, India, as well as how it is used to build skills, create opportunities and overcome the limitations of Internet access, and language and culture.
  • Lauren Yapp, a doctoral candidate in anthropology, will explore urban heritage protection in major cities in Indonesia, focusing on how memories of the colonial past are renegotiated and aspirations for the improvement of urban life are articulated through that process.
  • Victoria Yee, who earned a master's degree in sociology and a bachelor's degree in Asian American studies in 2013, will teach English and contribute to the publication of children's short stories in English in Taiwan.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program, which was designed to increase mutual understanding between Americans and the people of other countries, provides grants for individually designed study/research projects or for English Teaching Assistant Programs. Candidates are chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential.

It is one of several Fulbright programs sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and administered by the Institute of International Education.