Fulbright Program awards grants to graduating seniors, alumni and graduate students

Eighteen Stanford students and alumni have been awarded 2017-18 Fulbright grants.

Eighteen Stanford students and alumni will pursue special projects next year with funding they received from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. They will travel to 11 countries, including Australia, Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Tajikistan and Zambia.

The Stanford affiliates are among the more than 1,900 students, artists and young professionals who have been offered grants to study, to conduct research or to teach English in more than 140 countries during the 2017-18 academic year. Candidates are chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential.

Participants in the Fulbright Program, which was designed to increase mutual understanding between Americans and the people of other countries, engage in cultural exchange through direct interaction by sharing a variety of daily experiences.

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

  • Harley Adams, who earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in art history in 2012, will study the Thuggee gang of India and the origin of the word “Thug” in order to write a full-length play and mount it at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
  • Madihah Akhter, a doctoral candidate in history, will work on dissertation research in India to continue conversation about the longer history of contingent ideas and practices of sovereignty across South Asia, using gender as the primary mode of analysis.
  • Mateo Carrillo, a doctoral candidate in Latin American history, will explore how rural postwar Mexican transportation and agricultural industrialization transformed migrant mobility, landscapes and culture in Mexico and the United States.
  • James Gross, a senior majoring in archeology and classics, will study the Late Roman wine trade along Turkey’s Aegean Sea coast to understand the mechanisms and participants that contributed to and sustained this trade.
  • Vivian Ho, a senior majoring in human biology, will work on scaling up a comprehensive approach via entrepreneurial models and community-based interventions to improve maternal and child health in Ugandan villages.
  • Celina Jackson, a senior majoring in comparative studies in race and ethnicity, will continue to develop teaching skills and her understanding of Spanish society while carrying out collaborative community projects relating to how multiple ethnicities operate within a Spanish identity.
  • Emily Kelly, who earned a bachelor’s degree in human biology in 2016, will conduct research in India to identify and systematically evaluate traditional Tibetan medicines for their antibiotic potential.
  • Marie Lefebvre, a master’s student in Latin American studies, will develop her Spanish fluency and international business expertise through the Mexico Binational Internship Program to later pursue a career in public service furthering hemispheric relations.
  • Shazad Mohamed, who earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in 2016, will study the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Tajikistan to understand the network of institutions that support the development of new enterprises within the country.
  • Natasha Patel, who earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 2016, will conduct an ethnographic project in India to learn about the strategies that organizational administrators and teachers use to tailor education experience to the cultural reference point of students from “slum” communities.
  • Michael Raitor, a senior majoring in biomechanical engineering, will create a wearable system to prevent fall-related injuries in the elderly and other motor-impaired individuals at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
  • Shreya Ramachandran, a master’s student in biology who earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in biology in 2016, will assess the contributions of genetic and environmental risk factors for obesity in the Afro-Mexican community via fieldwork and genetic analysis in Mexico.
  • Victoria Saenz, a senior majoring in international relations and in Iberian and Latin American cultures, will look at pro- and anti-establishment music under military rule in Brazil, with Tropicália as a reference point, from 1964 to 1972 to analyze effects of cultural policy on national identity and expression.
  • Elif Tasar, who earned a bachelor’s degree in Earth systems in 2012, will enroll in the Master of Science program in environmental economics and climate change at the London School of Economics and Political Science to pursue a research dissertation.
  • Alexander Torres, a senior majoring in English, will teach English at La Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá, and plans to engage with the community by auditing courses on Latin American literature and starting a creative writing workshop.
  • Ramón Villaverde, a senior majoring in biology, will teach English and deepen his understanding of effective science communication and research while engaging in a community project that creates a space to discuss scientific topics relevant in Spanish society.
  • Emma Walker-Silverman, a senior majoring in psychology, will study attitudes toward Syrian refugees among host communities in Turkey.
  • James Winter, who is earning master’s and doctoral degrees in environmental engineering, will evaluate the health and economic impacts of small-scale solar-powered piped water systems being installed by World Vision in rural public schools in southern Zambia.

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, at dmurk@stanford.edu, or Shalini Bhutani, director of the Bechtel International Center, at sbhutani@stanford.edu.