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Photo credit: Courtesy of Tamar Thibodeau |
Vassar Announces 2009 Fellowship Recipients
Every year, Vassar students achieve national recognition for their academic pursuits with the garnering of various fellowships and awards. This year was no exception, with an outstanding number of Vassar students — and recent alumnae/i — earning an array of honors.
The Kathryn Wasserman Davis Projects for Peace Prize was awarded to María José Méndez ’10 (pictured), a native of Honduras. With the $10,000 she was given, Méndez will spend this summer working with her hometown community to build a water supply that is both sustainable and safe for the village of El Ciruelo. Her efforts will include building a new 10-meter-deep well, in addition to a water pump, piping system, and 10,000-gallon water tank.
The Fulbright Fellowship, which aims to create intellectual and cultural connections between the United States and other nations, was awarded to five graduating seniors. For Laura Fletcher ’09, her Fulbright will bring her to China to examine the theory, technique, and application of psychological procedures in schools in differing locations; Jonathan Kaiman ’09 will also travel to China to study the impact of modernity on the musical traditions of the Yi people; and Alexander “Sasha” Steinberg ’09 will embark on a critical investigation of public art and urban identity in Moscow. Allison Bloom ’09 and Michael Frenkel ’09 will travel on behalf of Fulbright’s English Teaching Assistantships (ETA) Program to Uruguay and Spain, respectively. Two recent alums were also awarded Fulbrights — Ethan Bien ’04 will travel to Russia to study Soviet animation techniques, and Acacia O’Connor ’08 will pursue an ETA in Malta.
Katharine Fussner ’09, Dana Levin ’09, and Brian Mawyer ’09 will all travel to France, having been awarded French Government Teaching Assistantships through the French Ministry of Education.
A number of other fellowships and grants were awarded to Vassar students and recent graduates this year, including two Compton Foundation Mentor Fellowships, a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, and National Science Foundation grants. The Office for Fellowships and Pre-Health Advising also has several fellowships open to alumnae/i. Contact the director, Lisa Kooperman, atlikooperman@vassar.edu for more information.