Report Variety of Alums Awarded Fulbright Fellowships

A report 17 current alumni have accepted grants by means of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, a selective tutorial and cultural alternate program that gives graduating faculty seniors, graduate college students, and younger professionals alternatives to check, analysis, or educate English in over 140 international locations.  

“In Spring 2025, we were thrilled to have 10 Fulbright grants awarded, setting a new record for the most Fulbright grants awarded to students and alumni in a single year,” mentioned Erica Kowsz, affiliate director for fellowships within the Fries Center for Global Studies. “The 2025 record didn’t last long. With 17 recipients in 2026, this year by far is Wesleyan’s biggest year for Fulbright yet.” 

The fellowships additionally characterize breadth in geographic attain, with recipients going to 5 of the Fulbright program’s six world areas. These fellows, who will interact in educating or analysis tasks in the course of the 2026-2027 tutorial 12 months, embody Muhammad Abdur-Rahman ’26, David Gabriel Calderon ’26, Carolyn Clark Mancini ’26, Priya Devavaram ’26, Liam Farrell ’26, Emma Goetz ’25, Blake Klein ’26, Judy Liu ’26, Carolyn Neugarten ’26, Ibby Newland ’26, Ruby Smith ’23, Robert Taylor Clemens ’26, Diana Q. Tran ’26, Lauren Tran-Muchowski ’25, Jocelyn Velasquez Baez ’23, Ava Yuanshun Guralnick ’25, and Isaac Platt Zolov ’26.  

As a Fulbright COMEXUS Binational Business Award recipient, David Calderon ’26 plans to spend a 12 months as a fellow at an organization with operations within the United States and Mexico. He may even take MBA courses on the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. 

His main within the College of Social Studies (CSS) and minor in knowledge evaluation offered the abilities he wanted for the fellowship. “Most CSS majors would say the writing-intensive part of the program helped the most,” he mentioned. “I’d add that the freedom to write about a new topic each week during my sophomore and junior years let me explore a lot of different interests. As for the data minor, a lot of companies want interns with technical skills, so learning R and Python was definitely worth my time.” 

Born in Miami and raised in Guatemala City, Calderon served as a co-chair of the International Student Advisory Board for 3 years, studied overseas in Madrid, and wrote his capstone on the challenges limiting Guatemalan avocado exports. During his summers, David interned on the MacArthur Foundation, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, and AGEXPORT, Guatemala’s Exporters Association. 

Calderon is at the moment making use of for a job, which might begin within the fall. He’s open to vary of alternatives which might permit him to be taught extra in regards to the position of the non-public sector in selling binational and regional cooperation. “One specific point I’d like to explore is how asymmetries in technology adoption might affect the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, particularly in how AI is developed and used,” he famous. 

His research will assist him decide subsequent steps. “I’m going into consulting after the grant, and an MBA is a very common path in that field,” he mentioned. “I want to use the classes to figure out whether the degree is right for me, or whether I’m more drawn to the social studies fields I explored at Wes.” 

Carolyn Neugarten ’26, who majored within the College of Letters with minors in economics and German research, obtained a Young Professional Journalist Award. With this grant, Neugarten will work for various publications and in addition interact in freelance writing tasks overseas. The publications embody POLITICO Europe and a every day newspaper in Berlin, Die Tageszeitung. She may even collaborate with The Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy to conduct background analysis on subjects reminiscent of cybercrime in Germany and the phenomenon of “hacktivism,” or politically motivated hacking.  

Neugarten’s time at Wesleyan ready her for the fellowship, which begins in September. “Even though Wesleyan doesn’t have a formal journalism track, I had plenty of flexibility to explore on my own,” she mentioned. “Serving as editor-in-chief of The Wesleyan Argus was probably my most formative journalism-related experience, and studying German for three years and completing a thesis in German Studies, as well as taking global economics courses, all furthered my interest in reporting internationally.” 

Prior work in media, together with at U.S. News and World Report, Connecticut Public (WNPR), and The New York Review of Books, additionally helped Neugarten put together to tackle a year-long investigative challenge. Through internships she labored on nationwide and native tales, reminiscent of investigative tasks on psychological healthcare in Maryland, police recruitment and retention in Connecticut, and knowledge middle improvement alongside the East Coast, she mentioned.  

With all of this hand-on, real-world expertise, Neugarten plans to proceed work in journalism. “I hope to return home to New York City or to Washington, D.C. to pursue a career in political and/or business reporting,” she mentioned.  

Muhammad Abdur-Rahman ’26 will journey to Bosnia and Herzegovina to function a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) on the Faculty of Islamic Studies on the University of Sarajevo. He mentioned he has struggled to be taught different languages and he hopes {that a} full 12 months overseas in Bosnia will give him a greater probability to take action.  

He additionally hopes to make use of his diploma in English and movie research to assist create a language curriculum that includes visible mediums like movie. Following his Fulbright expertise, he’s focused on pursuing a profession in educating. “Wesleyan’s English curriculum allowed me to explore my interests in the formal aspects of language just as deeply as I did its cultural import,” Abdur-Rahman mentioned. “Addressing English for the language it’s become—having traveled the world in the way it has—will allow me to teach the language so that my students feel they own part of it and its history.” 

Priya Devavaram ’26, a psychology main with a minor within the College of East Asian Studies, may even function a Fulbright ETA, however her fellowship will place her in Taiwan. She was within the Fulbright expertise partially as a result of it provided a chance to return to the nation after learning overseas there two years in the past. She is worked up to be taught extra in regards to the tradition, meals, and historical past, particularly the historical past of Taiwanese Indigenous peoples. 

She mentioned her expertise taking Chinese language programs at Wesleyan has helped put together her for her Fulbright. “Wesleyan has prepared me by teaching me that curiosity, openness, and a zest for learning the core of what you need to approach new experiences,” she mentioned. 

Liam Farrell ’26 had an analogous expertise at Wesleyan. He got here to campus from a small city in Maine and located himself surrounded by folks with totally different backgrounds, pursuits, and views, he mentioned. “Over four years, I learned how much growth can come from being open to unfamiliar people and ideas,” he mentioned. 

Now that he has graduated with a level from the College of Social Studies, he has accepted a Fulbright ETA place in Madagascar. He goals to deliver the open-mindedness he developed at Wesleyan to his work within the African nation, the place he goals to be taught the Malagasy language and grow to be a part of a area people.  

“I want to build lasting relationships with students, teachers, and members of the local community that last for years to come,” Farrell mentioned. “I hope to come away from the experience with a different perspective shaped by immersing myself deeply enough in the language, culture, and daily life that returning home feels unfamiliar in its own way.” 

He is wanting ahead to studying about native customs and traditions, together with a music and dance kind in Madagascar referred to as Hiragasy, by which troupes conduct music, dance, theater, and oratory performances laden with ethical classes and political commentary. Alongside the cultural prospects on supply in Madagascar, he’s additionally planning to discover the out of doors surroundings there. Madagascar is dwelling to round 5 % of the world’s biodiversity and 90 % of the island’s wildlife and plant species are native and endemic—they’re discovered nowhere else on the planet. 

The U.S. Fulbright program is contemplating functions till Oct. 6 at 5 p.m. Eastern. Interested college students ought to contact the Office of Fellowships for additional data. 

Mike Mavredakis contributed to this story.