Johns Hopkins Students and Alumna Win Fulbright Academic Grants

Three Homewood seniors and a recent alumna have been awarded Fulbright Academic grants to study and research abroad in the coming year. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards approximately 1,000 Academic/Arts grants annually, with the goal of fostering cultural as well as intellectual exchange. Grantees pursue graduate degrees or independent research, collaborating with affiliates at academic and cultural centers in 140 countries worldwide.

Katie Botto will graduate in 2015 with a B.A. in International Studies, East Asian Studies, and Sociology. A finalist for the Beinecke Scholarship last year, Katie is active on campus as an editor at JHU Politik; she has also chaired various committees for the JHU Model UN conference over the past three years. She is widely traveled in East Asia, having interned in rural China and Japan. With the support of her Fulbright grant, Katie will spend the next two years in South Korea earning a master’s degree in Global Affairs and Public Policy at Yonsei University in Seoul. When she returns to the U.S. she will pursue a career in East Asia policy, and hopes to work for an organization like the U.S. Department of State or the Institute of Peace. For advice from Katie about applying for a Fulbright Academic grant, click here.

Justin Falcone will graduate in 2015 with a B.A. in Environmental Archaeology. A Truman Scholar and Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Johns Hopkins, Justin will travel to Fiji during his Fulbright year, to continue work he initiated while living in French Polynesia and Kiribati for a semester. During his sophomore year travels, Justin researched the effects of climate change on low-lying South Pacific islands, documenting his experiences in a photography series entitled, “In the Wake: Rising Seas, Vanishing Nations,” recently exhibited in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. In the past year, his research has expanded to learning geospatial analysis to document climate change off the coast of California as an NSF-REU grant recipient, as well as several months of archaeology fieldwork in Oman and Italy. Next year, he will continue his research on human-environment interactions in Fiji, collaborating with environmental geography professors at the University of the South Pacific. The co-founder and president of the Alliance for Clean Water at Johns Hopkins, Justin is committed to a career that will allow him to actively translate his research on climate change into public service. For advice from Justin about applying for a Fulbright Academic grant, click here.

Christina Meyer will graduate in 2015 with a B.A. in Public Health and East Asian Studies. Christina was inspired to the project she’ll carry out in China after spending a summer teaching English in rural Hunan Province, where many of her middle school students were the children of migrant workers. This coming year, she will research the impact of catastrophic health events on patterns of rural to urban migration in the Nanjing region, under the mentorship of Professor Yinhong Jin, a sociologist at Nanjing University. After her Fulbright year, Christina will pursue graduate study, continuing her research in the field of public health. She plans to focus her efforts on improving access to quality health care in developing Asian nations, and among underserved, minority populations. For advice from Christina about applying for a Fulbright Academic grant, click here.

Raychel Santo graduated in 2014 with a B.A. in Public Health and Global & Environmental Change and Sustainability. She was the recipient of the 2014 Barton Cup, the highest honor given each year to a single graduating Johns Hopkins senior. Raychel, a finalist for both the Truman and Marshall Fellowships, was awarded a Udall fellowship during her sophomore year. Well-known on campus for her commitment to public service, she co-founded the organization Real Food Hopkins, committed to bringing ethically sourced and sustainable local foods to the campus and its surrounding neighborhoods. She was also a founding member of the community garden at Johns Hopkins Eastern, and currently works as Program Coordinator at the Center for a Livable Future. With the support of her Fulbright grant, Raychel will travel to the UK where she will pursue a master’s degree in Food, Space, and Society at Cardiff University. There, she will also participate in a local gardening cooperative, the Riverside Community Allotment Project, and volunteer for Fairtrade Cardiff. She plans a career in local and regional food policy upon her return to the U.S.

In addition to these four academic grant winners, Aravind Krishnan, who will graduate in 2015 with a B.A. in Biophysics, was named an alternate for a Fulbright award to Hungary. For advice from Aravind about applying for a Fulbright Academic grant, click here.

To learn more about Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards, please visit the Fulbright Academic/Arts and Fulbright English Teaching Assistant pages on the National Fellowships Program website, or email Dr. Miller at [email protected].