By Erica Kowsz, Associate Director of Fellowships
This year, Wesleyan had its highest yet number of applicants for the Fulbright US Student Program. 11 members of the Class of ’26 and 6 alumni from earlier graduation years were awarded grants through the Fulbright US Student Program, the nation’s largest exchange program, awarding more than 1800 awards in over 140 countries, worldwide. Fulbright grants span all fields of study and are open to graduating seniors and recent alumni who have not yet completed a doctoral degree. Fulbright grants provide a stipend and support for grantees to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, or English teaching at primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels. During their grants, Fulbrighters meet, live with, work alongside, and learn from the people of the host country.
15 of these grants are in the English Teaching Assistant Program, through which U.S citizens to teach English and promote cross-cultural exchange. Our Fulbright ETAs will be headed to 9 countries, spanning Eastern Europe, the European Mediterranean, South America, North Africa, and East Asia.
Our newest Fulbright ETAs are:
- Bosnia and Herzegovina: Muhammad Abdur-Rahman ’26
- Brazil: Jocelyn Velasquez Baez ’23
- Italy: Ibby Newland ’26
- Madagascar: William (Liam) Farrell ’26
- Morocco: Diana Q. Tran ’26
- South Korea: Ava Yuanshun Guralnick ’25
- Spain: Robbie Clemens ’26, Blake Klein ’26, Emma Goetz ’25, Ruby Smith ’23, Caroline Clark Mancini ’26
- Taiwan: Priya Devavaram ’26, Judy Liu ’26, Isaac Platt Zolov ’26
- Vietnam: Lauren Tran-Muchowski ’25
We also have 2 new recipients of Fulbright Study/Research Awards. These grants generally support fellows for one year of independent research or graduate study abroad, but they take different forms across the countries that participate in the program. Our two recipients this year are part of special career-related Fulbright awards for young professionals pursuing career development in journalism and business, and they add Central Europe and North America to the regions we will have Fulbrighters travelling to next year:
- Germany: Carolyn Neugarten ’26, Young Professional Journalist Award
- As a Fulbright Young Professional Journalist Award grantee based in Berlin, Neugarten will be working with POLITICO Europe, the Berlin daily newspaper Die Tageszeitung, and with the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy to write investigative news stories on cybercrime in Germany and the phenomenon of “”hacktivism,”” or politically motivated hacking.
- Mexico: David Gabriel Calderon ’26, Binational Business Award
- As a Fulbright COMEXUS Binational Business Award recipient, Calderon will spend a year as a fellow at a company with operations in the U.S. and Mexico and take MBA classes at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. After his Fulbright, David will work as a Business Analyst at McKinsey & Company.
