Ten seniors and recent graduates of the University of Minnesota systemwide have been offered grants to study and teach abroad during the 2018-19 academic year by the Fulbright U.S. Student Program and another has been designated as an alternate. The Fulbright Program was created and funded by Congress in 1946 to promote international good will through the exchange of students and scholars in all areas of education, culture and science. The program awards approximately 1,900 grants annually in all fields of study and operates in more than 140 countries worldwide.
Amanda Grant, (U of M Twin Cities) a senior from Eagan who will teach English in South Korea, grew up in a home with two languages, English and Portuguese, but she has made the languages and cultures of Asia the subject of her studies. She studied Japanese in high school at Apple Valley but turned to Korean at the University of Minnesota and will graduate this spring with a major in Asian Languages and Literatures with a Korean focus. She will also complete minors in Linguistics and Teaching English as a Second Language and has volunteered as an ESL tutor at the Hmong Cultural Center and with Bloomington Adult Education. Grant spent the 2016-17 academic year studying at Songang and Yonsei Universities in South Korea and has been active with Korean cultural groups on campus.
Chloe Fouilloux, (U of M Twin Cities) a senior from Bloomington majoring in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, has been awarded a Fulbright Research grant to study social behavior of endangered Barbary macaques in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. She will join a research team led by Professor Mohammed Znari of Cadi Ayyad University that will assess paternity and reproductive success among four troops of macaques in the upper Ourika Valley. In addition to her research, Fouilloux, who is fluent in French, will serve as a teaching assistant for environmental science courses and consult with farmers whose fields overlap with macaque habitat. While at the University of Minnesota, she has been an officer in the Marine Biology Club and has engaged in field research in Guyana, Belize and Greenland. In the future she plans to do graduate work in evolutionary biology that allows her to explore more of the planet's ecosystems.
Charles Jin Hyuk Lim Olsen (U of M Twin Cities) of Shoreview graduated last May with majors in Political Science and Global Studies. He was adopted from Korea as a child and has studied Korean and practiced Korean drumming from a young age. After graduating from Mounds View High School he spent a year studying Korean language and culture at Yonsei University, but his interests took a turn at the University of Minnesota, where he studied French and developed an interest in the cultures of West Africa. As a Fulbright ETA in Cote d’Ivoire, Charles will teach English and use his musical and linguistic skills to develop relationships and explore Ivorian culture.
Joseph Rojas (U of M Twin Cities) of North Saint Paul will graduate this spring with majors in Global Studies, French and Spanish/Portuguese with additional coursework in Italian and Norwegian. He will spend next year as a Fulbright ETA in Brazil, where he also spent the summer of 2015 at the Universidade Do Sul De Santa Catarina. He has also spent three summers as camp counselor at the Concordia Language Villages and has been involved in a wide array of foreign language and cultural groups on campus. Having worked as a Refugee and Immigrant Program intern with the Advocates for Human Rights and a Portuguese translator for documentary films, Joseph is considering a number of future options including graduate study in law, Latin American Studies, International Development or all three.
Tate Sheppard, (U of M Twin Cities) a senior from Eagan majoring in Theatre Arts and Spanish/Portuguese, will spend next year working with several theatre companies in São Paulo, Brazil to assess the impact of government arts funding on the production of drama that engages underrepresented audiences and enhances the social fabric of the city. In particular, he will work with the companies Cia Antropofágica and Cia Parlapatões, observing their development and production of a season of plays, and with Professor Paloma Vidal at the Universidade Federal De São Paulo, an expert on Latin American literature and public art. Sheppard has previously worked with the Minnesota Fringe Festival and has appeared in dramatic productions on and off campus. In the future, he plans to combine graduate work in Cultural Studies with theatrical work to improve arts accessibility.
Magdalena Schroeder, (U of M Twin Cities) an Italian and Mathematics major from Saint Cloud, has been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Germany. She will choose between accepting it or a similar award from the Austrian government to teach there. Last year she studied abroad in Italy, where she volunteered in a classroom at the International School in Bologna, and she has worked as a camp counselor for the Concordia Language Villages and at the Twin Cities German Immersion School. When she completes her teaching experience abroad she plans to return to school for her teaching license and hopes to work with younger children in a language immersion school.
Quynh-Huong Van, (U of M Twin Cities) an English major from Woodbury, will spend next year in India as a Fulbright-Nehru English Teaching Assistant. Although she entered the University of Minnesota planning for a business degree, she ended up following her passion for the English language and literature and plans to complete her certification in secondary education. She is particularly interested in working with children who are not native English speakers, and she has tutored language skills in a number of local schools and in Vietnam in addition to running her own test prep consulting business. She looks forward to learning more about the languages and literary traditions of India during her Fulbright year.
Amy Verrando, (U of M Twin Cities) a senior from Naperville, Illinois majoring in Psychology and English, will travel to Malaysia as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. She has worked as a consultant in the Campus Center for Writing for two years and has experience teaching English, math and motorcycle safety skills. Having previously studied abroad in Spain and Argentina, she is looking forward to spending a year in Asia and expanding her international experience. As a member of the University of Minnesota’s climbing team, she especially looks forward to exploring the Malaysian climbing scene. After her Fulbright experience, Amy plans to attend law school.
Brittany Grady, (U of M Morris) an English/German/Medieval Studies triple major, will spend a year in Germany as an English Teaching Assistant. She will have the opportunity to teach children in German schools not only about English as a language, but also about the nuances of and diversity within American culture. Although she's not sure what life holds following her Fulbright year, she trusts the experience, combined with her Morris degree, will prepare her for whatever lies ahead.
Autumn Carlson, (U of M Morris) a Spanish and Latin American Area Studies major, will spend a year in Mexico as an English Teaching Assistant. She also plans to work on a bilingual conversation club, much like Morris's own Jane Addams Project. As an English as a Second Language (ESL) tutor, she spent part of her junior year studying in Guanajuato in hopes of returning better equipped to serve her ESL students. While she isn't entirely sure what she'll do following her Fulbright year, she wants to continue working with greater Minnesota's Latino and immigrant communities.
Alternate
Trisha Chaudhary, (U of M Twin Cities) a senior Economics major from Colombia, Missouri, was named as an alternate for the Fulbright ETA program in Argentina, but she has been awarded a Princeton in Asia fellowship and will spend the year working with an NGO in Bangalore, India.
Current undergraduates and recent graduates who are interested in applying for the Fulbright Student Program, the Austrian USTA Program, or Princeton in Asia should contact Timothy Jones in the University Honors Program, [email protected] or 612-624-5522.
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