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Earth Systems student awarded Fulbright grant

Earth Systems student Songhee Han, '18, is one of 20 people with Stanford affiliations awarded 2018-19 Fulbright grants to further their studies around the world. Han will work with scientists to investigate the effects of urbanization and deforestation in the Amazon rainforests on mosquito-transmitted diseases.

Deforestation in the Amazon.
Authorities find trees that have been felled in the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil. Photo creditVincius MendonaFlickr

Twenty Stanford seniors, graduate students and alumni have been awarded grants to pursue special projects abroad next year with funding from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

The Fulbright recipients affiliated with Stanford will travel to 15 countries, including Brazil, China, Ivory Coast, Jordan and Ukraine, where they will carry out individually designed study/research projects, or take part in English Teaching Assistant Programs during the 2018-19 academic year.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program, which is designed to build lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries, has awarded grants to more than 1,900 U.S. citizens who will pursue special projects in more than 160 countries.

Stanford’s Fulbright U.S. recipients and their projects follow:

  • Mehdi Ali, who earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations and a master’s degree in sociology in 2010, and a law degree in 2013, will conduct research at the University of Jordan as part of a project to explore impact investing in the Middle East.
  • Anna Blue, who earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations in 2016, will investigate how government actions in Estonia smoothly integrated the e-services platform and enabled the digital ecosystem to thrive, in order to understand if its model could work for other countries.
  • Riley Brett-Roche, a doctoral student in history, will research the creation, preservation and classification of modern China’s archives as an affiliate at Tsinghua University to explain how China’s libraries and archives became what they are today.
  • Emma Daugherty, who earned a bachelor’s degree in linguistics in 2017, will assist teaching English to secondary school students in South Korea, with an emphasis on developing intercultural communication and global citizenship skills. She hopes to volunteer with North Korean defectors.
  • Songhee Han, a senior majoring in Earth Systems, will work with scientists at the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, to investigate the effects of urbanization and deforestation in the Amazon rainforests on the dynamic of mosquito-transmitted diseases.
  • Nathaniel Hansen, a senior majoring in biology, will work with the Institute of Circumpolar Health Research in Yellowknife, Canada, to develop a community of practice to devise effective and culturally appropriate substance abuse and mental illness interventions.
  • Peter Hick, a doctoral student in history, will use archival work to research how the dynamics of migration impacted the social and political fabric of south China’s Siyi region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
  • Elizabeth Jacob, a doctoral student in history, will research the conflicts of cocoa cultivation in Ivory Coast, specifically how cocoa crises, tracing back to the colonial period, have created the conditions for sociopolitical change.
  • Raquel Lane, who earned a bachelor’s degree in Chicanx/Latinx studies in 2017, will expand her historical perspective and pedagogy as an English teaching assistant in Mexico. She will develop a storytelling project based on visual art and poetry to build cross-cultural and global community.
  • Carly Lave, who earned a bachelor’s degree in American studies in 2015, will study how the human body moves when interacting with artificial intelligence technologies at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. The results will inform a self-choreographed dance solo performance.
  • Jason Li, a senior majoring in human biology, will implement and independently evaluate an integrated early child development intervention with community health workers in rural Shaanxi, China, to combat the effects of childhood malnutrition and a lack of quality health care.
  • Claire Maass, a doctoral student in anthropology, will perform archaeological research studying the history of African slavery in Peru and its legacy for Afro-Peruvian communities and cultural heritage in the present.
  • Paloma Martinez, a master’s student in documentary film and video, will produce a documentary film in Mexico, Return from “El Otro Lado,” exploring the cultural bonds between the United States and Mexico as embodied by young undocumented immigrants who grew up as Americans.
  • Alden McCollum, a senior majoring in linguistics, will use her training in English as a Second Language and love of translation to broaden her cultural awareness and that of her students in Peru. She will lead extracurricular workshops on literary translation of poetry.
  • Matthew Nestler, a doctoral student in history, will study the relationship between inflation and inequality in modern Brazilian history from 1945 to 1994, and how experiences/practices living under inflation impact macro structures and the political/economic drivers of inflation.
  • Reid Pryzant, a doctoral student in computer science, will begin his dissertation at Kyoto University in Japan. He will work on developing new methods of automatic English-Japanese translation, which will be the culmination of several already conducted pilot studies.
  • Rachel Roberts, a senior majoring in international relations, will investigate high rates of youth unemployment in Jordan by examining the impact of unemployment on young Jordanians’ views of the education system, refugees and family.
  • Padraic Rohan, a doctoral student in history, will work in Italy on his dissertation regarding the transformation of the late medieval Genoese maritime empire in the eastern Mediterranean into a financial empire based in Spain and the Atlantic.
  • Alexandra Sukalo, a doctoral student in Eastern European and Russian history, will examine the Soviet secret police’s notorious brutality and social engineering in Ukraine as both destructive and creative forces that explain the police’s role on identity formation in Soviet Ukraine.
  • Elizabeth Wallace, a senior majoring in English and French literature, will assist teaching English language and literature at the high school level in Indonesia. She also hopes to teach a conservation education class and assist with local biodiversity efforts.

Students interested in overseas scholarships, including the Fulbright Grants, and faculty interested in nominating students for such awards, may contact Diane Murk, manager of the Overseas Resource Center, or Shalini Bhutani, director of the Bechtel International Center.

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