Four UT students have been awarded Fulbright US Student Program Grants for 2016–17:
Desiree Dube, a senior in history and Russian studies, will spend the next academic year teaching English in Russia. Dube, of Clarksville, Tennessee, will be working at a Russian university and starting a book club there.
Kathleen “Kassie” Ernst, a doctoral student in energy geography at the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education, will be going to Norrköping, Sweden, to study climate related issues. Ernst, who is from Whitehall, Wisconsin, will be working with the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute and the Stockholm Environment Institute to find ways of making climate information gleaned from models more usable for urban policy makers.
Kenna Rewcastle, a 2015 graduate in the College Scholars program, will be going to Sweden to complete research on the impact of climate change on the food source for reindeer herds managed by the Sami indigenous people. Rewcastle, of Apison, Tennessee, who was also a Haslam Scholar as an undergraduate, spent the last year researching climate change as a laboratory and field technician with UT’s Classen Ecosystem Ecology Lab, which was helping with a project funded by the Department of Energy. She also has worked in labs in Denmark, China, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Lydia Walker, a doctoral student in history, will be based at the University of Ghent in Belgium. Walker, who is originally of Sparks, Nevada, is doing research on the sermons of Jacques de Vitry, a thirteenth-century bishop, preacher, crusade leader, and patron and biographer of the famous mystic Marie d’Oignes. She will be studying copies of Jacques de Vitry’s manuscripts dating from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. She expects to visit the Royal Library of Belgium, the Seminary in Brugge, the University of Liege, and the University of Ghent to view collections.
A fifth student, Taylor Cox, has been named a Fulbright alternate. If a finalist withdraws or if additional funding becomes available, Taylor, a 2015 graduate in chemistry with a minor in Hispanic studies, will go to Guatemala as an English teaching assistant.
The largest US exchange program, Fulbright provides opportunities for recent graduates, graduate students, and professionals to travel abroad for research, graduate studies, university teaching, and primary and secondary school teaching.
This year marks the seventieth anniversary of the Fulbright Program’s establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. Since then, the program— funded through an annual appropriation made by Congress to the US Department of State—has given more than 360,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
UT undergraduate students, graduate students, and alumni interested in applying for the Fulbright US Student Program should visit the Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships website and contact ONSF Director Andrew Seidler to discuss the campus application process and deadline schedule.
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CONTACT:
Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)