2015-2016 Recipients

Marina graduated with a double major in English and German and a minor in Cinema Studies. Passionate about German language, culture, and history, Marina used her time as a Bowdoin student to immerse herself in the language as much as possible through her studies, her work as a Departmental Tutor and Teaching Assistant, and her time studying in Freiburg, Germany. Marina will be working as an English Teaching Assistant at two different schools in the cities of St. Polten and Neulengbach, both of which lie just west of Vienna.  Marina has friends and family from Vienna and looks forward to developing her teaching skills while strengthening her ties to the region, language, and culture.

A German major and teaching minor from Maine, Anna studied abroad as a junior in Salzburg, Austria, and is returning to Austria to teach English. Anna’s teaching experience extended beyond her education classes at Bowdoin; she was a TA for the German department, a Spanish tutor, a volunteer at schools in Maine, and she ran an educational sailing summer program for kids in Lincolnville. At Bowdoin, Anna was active in the Women’s Varsity Rugby team, serving as team president and “rookie mom."

Sinead graduated in 2015, having majored in Sociology and studying Arabic. She did a semester abroad in Tunis, and in 2016 received the Critical Language Scholarship from the State Department to continue her language studies in an intensive, summer-long program in Amman, Jordan where she will study both Modern Standard Arabic and the Jordanian dialect. In the future, she hopes one day to create an organization centered around local farming and language/political education. Her broader goals are to provide empowering employment opportunities for recently arrived immigrants and the poor, as well as to help communities localize their economies. Sinead was born and raised in New York City.

An economics and Russian double-major from Houston, TX, Ivette will spend the Summer of 2016 participating in the Critical Language Scholarship program in Russia. She spent the previous summer in Moscow researching Russian emigres in the period after the Russian Revolution. 

Nick graduated from Bowdoin with a double major in Government and Legal Studies and Russian. Through intensive, summer-long language classes based in the city of Vladimir, the Critical Language Scholarship will help him hone his linguistic skills and allow him to indulge his fascination with Russia's history and culture. He aims to develop an expertise as a political and economic observer of that country, and hopes through his professional life to spend time in Russia.

Caroline Martinez majored in Sociology and Gender and Women's Studies and minored in Latin American Studies. The summer after her junior year she went to Ecuador, her home country, to conduct a research project about indigenous female leaders in Ecuarunari, a highland organization fighting for land and water rights. This research project motivated Caroline to continue working with women in Ecuarunari after she left Bowdoin College. During the summer of 2016, Caroline will be working on a collaborative series of leadership workshops with the Davis Projects for Peace and recently formed Counsel of Women of Ecuarunari.

Julia graduated from Bowdoin with a double major in English and German. Currently, she is putting both degrees into practice as an English Teaching Assistant in Nuremberg, where she will be working with migrants and minorities as a part of Fulbright's diversity program. Julia has a passion for language and linguistics and spent a semester abroad in Freiburg, Germany. She looks forward to both learning more about Germany's educational system and fostering her teaching skills during her time abroad.

Kenny graduated with degrees in Russian and Mathematics.  As a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Bulgaria, he will spend a year teaching English to high school students, while immersing himself in his fourth Slavic language, Bulgarian. At the same time, he will draw upon his honors project on national identity formation in postwar socialist Poland to research how dialects in Slavic Southeastern Europe affect local and national identity. After Bulgaria, he intends to pursue a PhD in linguistics in order to research the intricacies of modern Slavic languages and Slavic national identities.

While at Bowdoin, Talia majored in Government and Legal Studies. Her teaching experience is drawn from co-teaching a seminar for her Alternative Winter Break trip, and mentoring and teaching middle school girls through Fostering Female Leadership in Youth (FFLY). Talia also co-founded a podcast at Bowdoin (The Bowdoin Commons), and hopes to continue podcasting during her adventures in South Korea. She also hopes to start a program similar to FFLY at her school. This will be her first time in South Korea, but she looks forward to getting to know this new and exciting place both inside and outside the classroom.

Kelsey majored in Government and Legal Studies and minored in Spanish. Her interest in small communities' relationship with the state and indigenous rights developed over her time at Bowdoin. During her junior year, she studied abroad in Merida, Mexico and conducted a community-based research project on Mayan education. Her honors project also focused on two indigenous movements in Mexico and Ecuador and involved fieldwork in Mexico. She has also taught kayaking and other outdoor skills, as well as summer youth programs with the Native American Youth Association in Portland, OR. While in Mexico as an ETA, in addition to connecting with students through teaching, she plans to pursue a journalistic-style community engagement project focusing on immigration.

David graduated with a degree in History. He will be teaching English and American Studies at Ovidius University of Constanta on the shore of the Black Sea. Alongside his teaching responsibilities, David looks forward to exploring community service opportunities, studying Eastern Orthodox traditions and practices, and hearing about Romanians' perspectives on the future of Europe. After the Fulbright, he hopes to pursue a career in the Foreign Service and State Department or work on public policy in Washington.

Inspired by an ongoing interest in Eastern European film and literature, Bridget hopes to learn more about Slovak cultural, literary and artistic traditions. She will live there for a year as an English teaching assistant in a high school setting. In her spare time, she hopes to get involved with local art programming and learn more about Slovakia's regional differences and discrepancies. The intersection of art and political identity is interesting and important to her. At Bowdoin she was a Visual Art major and Government minor who had worked with Somali refugees in Portland, at summer camps, as well as doing art therapy with youth in Lewiston.

Michelle majored in Sociology and minored in Education Studies and Earth and Oceanographic Science with experience as a reading and writing tutor for kindergarteners and sixth graders. A Polish-Mexican-American, Michelle has always been interested in race an intersectionality. She is excited to comprehend what it means to be American while teaching English at the University of Technology in Czestochowa, Poland with the Fulbright ETA Fellowship. Michelle plans on attending graduate school to pursue a PhD in Sociology upon returning from Poland.

After two years working as an Admissions Counselor at Bates College, Mark is eager to return to Germany, where he studied abroad, as an English Teaching Assistant in Rheinbach, a small town near the Belgian border. An Africana Studies major and German minor, Mark will use his language skills and his interest in cross-cultural understanding to create a podcast where he will interview Germans from all different walks of life, seeking to answer the following question: "What does it mean to be German in the 21st century?" Upon returning home, Mark will pursue a graduate degree in preparation for a career in higher education, either as a professor or an administrator.

Lily graduated in 2016 with a major in Asian Studies and a minor in History.  While a student at Bowdoin, she focused on East Asian cultural history and Chinese language. A grantee of Fulbright's English Teaching Assistantship, she will be located in Kaohsiung, Taiwan for the 2016-2017 program cycle. In Taiwan Lily hopes to draw upon her academic background and previous teaching experiences to foster language and culture exchanges both within and beyond the classroom. During the grant period she also plans to continue learning about Taiwan's 20th century past, working on her personal writings, and tap dancing.

An Earth and Oceanographic Science major and Chemistry minor who had taken German at Bowdoin, Lloyd is excited to explore both Germany and paleoceanographic research for the first time. After two summers of research at Bowdoin and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Lloyd looks forward to working at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, using ocean sediment cores stored there to reconstruct the geography and extent of meltwater from North America during the last deglaciation. Lloyd, a member of the swim team and involved in mentoring, will draw on these experiences as he hopes to volunteer teaching swim lessons in Kiel.

Hannah graduated from Bowdoin with a double major in Government and Spanish, and is primarily interested in Latin American economic development. As a Fulbright grantee, Hannah will work at a Mexican company in Mexico City, building on her previous experiences.  While at Bowdoin, Hannah spent three months working for FINCA International in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and seven months at an educational and social services organization in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Following graduation, Hannah spent a year as a Project Associate at the Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) at Accion International. A 2014 recipient of the Truman Scholarship, Hannah intends to pursue an MBA as well as an MA in International Studies.

At Bowdoin Tenzin majored in Government & Legal Studies and minored in Chinese, and incorporated study abroad in China into her junior year. For her Fulbright Tenzin will be travelling to Chengdu's Wuhou district to study ethnic Tibetan migrants who've settled in the pre-dominantly ethnic Han City and she'll be identifying the types of links between the Tibetan villages with urban life. Tenzin plans to pursue a PhD in Modern Tibetan Studies following her year in China

While at Bowdoin, Peter majored in Mathematics, focusing especially on pure math. Having spent two summers conducting research in number theory, Peter is excited to continue working in quantitative fields. He plans to pursue a graduate degree in mathematics.

Liam is a Biology major with a focus on ecology and evolutionary biology. He is also a computer science minor, hoping to understand how computational strategies can inform biology and vice-versa. Liam spent his first two Bowdoin summers at the Bowdoin Scientific Station on Kent Island, where he helped continue the decades-long investigation into the demographics and breeding biology of the Leach's Storm-Petrel. He spent his third summer on campus studying the computational behavior and evolution of animal spatial systems. In his senior year, he will pursue an Honors project investigating the population biology of two other major Kent Island study species: Tree Swallows and Savannah Sparrows.

After majoring in Chemistry and Asian Studies, Katie has been assigned to teach English in Itoigawa, a small city in the Niigata Prefecture, as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) through the Japan Exchange & Teaching Programme. She believes that this teaching program will provide the perfect opportunity to not only explore Japanese language and culture, but also to gain practical teaching experience.

A Romance Languages major and Government & Legal Studies minor, Michael will be shifting gears and living in Takikawa, a small city in the remote Hokkaido Prefecture. As an Assistant Language Teacher, he's excited to adapt teaching experiences at Bowdoin, in the Writing Project and as an Italian TA, to a Japanese high school. He thinks this year in Japan will be a great opportunity to work on his Japanese language skills and continue to explore education and writing.

An Asian Studies major, Rob graduated in 2013 having spent time at Bowdoin tutoring with Let's Get Ready, and teaching Japanese to elementary schoolers in Brunswick, ME. In Japan Rob will be an Assistant Language Teacher

As one of two students in the country to receive the Keasbey Scholarship this year, Haley will continue exploring the overlap between their Chemistry and Religious Studies majors while pursing a M.Sc. in Science and Religion at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. In addition, Haley plans to pursue a second M.Sc. in Art in the Global Middle Ages with support from the Keasbey Memorial Foundation. Haley is interested in using analytical chemistry to analyze medieval art in order to better understand the interactions between different medieval religious groups or to help repatriate objects displaced by current religious conflict in the Middle East.

Isaiah is an Earth and oceanographic sciences major and chemistry minor who graduated from Bowdoin in 2015 and entered a PhD program at the University of Washington for Chemical Oceanography. At Bowdoin, Isaiah was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellow. He is originally from Tennessee.

While at Bowdoin, Meg double majored in Chemistry and Earth and Oceanographic Studies (EOS). Though she had established her interest in chemistry in high school, her EOS classes early in her Bowdoin career quickly pushed her toward a double major. Through three summers of research, Meg also developed a love for research and completed an honors project under Professor Michèle LaVigne exploring the use of bamboo corals as recorders of ocean conditions at depth over the last century. Her NSF fellowship will support her pursuit of a PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, with a research focus on paleoclimate and marine geochemistry.

A geology major and biology minor who graduated in 2010, Kit is pursing a PhD at the University of Maine in the Ecology and Environmental Sciences Program. Her three-year grant will support her research into human-environmental interactions on the Falkland Islands.

A double-major in biology and Spanish with a minor in environmental sciences, Sheela graduated Bowdoin in 2013 and is currently at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology where she is pursuing a PhD.

Alex graduated from Bowdoin with a degree in English and a minor in Economics. He spent his junior fall studying in Zanzibar, where he observed the vital interrelationship between energy and international development. While abroad, Alex interviewed rural businesses to determine the market size for small-scale solar in Zanzibar. He has received a Princeton in Africa fellowship to work for a firm that builds infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa, and will be spending part of his time marketing solar home systems to unelectrified communities on Lake Victoria.

During his time at Bowdoin, Shan majored in Biology with a minor in Music. He spent a semester studying wildlife management in northern Tanzania during his junior year, which is when he first became fascinated by the intersection of conservation, sustainability, and human development. Shan will be working in rural Kenya with Nyumbani Village, an organization that is home to roughly 1,000 children who have been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS, where he will assist with sustainability initiatives such as rainwater harvesting, waste management, and agroforestry. He cannot wait to call Kenya his home for an entire year, to explore the culture and language, and find time to travel around the region.

A Government and Legal Studies major with a focus on international relations, Emma's interests in education and public health led her to the Princeton in Africa program. While at Bowdoin, Emma worked for Residential Life, the Women's Resource Center, and the Office for Gender Violence Prevention and Education. As a Princeton in Africa fellow, Emma will be working for the Indigenous Education Foundation of Tanzania in rural Monduli, Tanzania. She will work as the Scholarship Communications Coordinator and the Life Skills teacher, a class including subjects like sex education and leadership development. In addition to learning Swahili, Emma is excited to travel East Africa on school breaks.

Will hopes that, as a Princeton in Asia Fellow, his academic and professional experience can serve the Mongolian economy. Working as an analyst at the Mongolian International Capital Corporation, he will use finance to help local entrepreneurs and businesses. Though Will's career plans are flexible upon his return to the United States, he is interested in public policy and renewable energy, the subject of his Economics senior thesis. At Bowdoin, Will worked for Residential Life and wrote for the Orient.

While at Bowdoin, Tess majored in Earth and Oceanographic Science and minored in Visual Arts, focusing on landscape oil painting and wooden boat building. During her yearlong Watson Fellowship, Tess will explore how people around the world make home in harmony with the surrounding landscape and community. Tess will journey to intentional communities that span over three generations of evolution and go further back in human history to experience traditions of some of humankind's oldest cultures in order to understand how to effectively re-kindle a community connection to nature and community through the artful building of home.