Students garner most Fulbright fellowships for the 18th year

Madeline Hamblin (far left, front row), Director of the Office of Graduate Affairs, gathers with students who have won Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowships. Chicago students excelled in garnering fellowships, with 23 students (68 percent of applicants) receiving awards. It is the 18th consecutive year that Chicago students have received more fellowships than any educational institution in the United States.

Graduate students are continuing their winning ways in receiving Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowships. College and graduate students also performed well in receiving a large number of Fulbright U.S. Student Program fellowships.

This year, for the 18th consecutive year, University students won more Fulbright-Hays fellowships than any U.S. educational institution, with 23 students (68 percent of applicants) receiving the awards. Last year, 21 students received Fulbright-Hays fellowships.

The dissertation fellowships are for study in non-Western countries and cover periods of six to 12 months. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.

The University’s strong interdisciplinary focus, which involves strong area centers and language programs in Arabic, Chinese and Japanese, plays a vital role in students’ success, as does strong support from faculty in making recommendations, said Madeline Hamblin, Director of the Office of Graduate Affairs.

The following students received the dissertation awards: Jayson Beaster-Jones, Robert Blunt, Justine Buck, Anthony Cerulli, Edward Cohn, Elena Corbett, Annika Culver, Paul Fischer, Mark Flummerfelt, Katarzyna Grochowska, Courtney Handman, Jose Hermandez, Sarah Muir, John Osburg, Alejandro Paz, Scott Richard, Guriqbal Sohota, Oscar Sanchez, Sean Smith, Namita Sugandhi, Alicia Turner, Jessica Vantine and Ben Zajicek.

The State Department awards nine-month overseas travel grants to undergraduate and graduate students through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

Receiving the awards in the College are Megan Buskey, Nishaant Choksi, David Daniel, Kenzie Grubitz, Sarah Miller and Rebecca Nelson.

Graduate students receiving the fellowships are Annika Culver, Tolga Esmer, Paul Fischer, Erica Geyer, Aaron Griffith, Katarzyna Grochowska, Elizabeth Haight, Jason Ingersool, Jacqueline Jones, Jeffrey Saletnik, Avi Sharma and Namita Sugandhi.

Among universities of its size in the Midwest, the University produced a commendable level of Fulbright U.S. fellows. Only the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, a much larger university, with 29 fellows, produced more fellows than did Chicago.