NFP Alumni Newsletter

In this edition:

• Greetings from NFP
• NFP/Scholars & Fellows Staff News
• Recent Finalists & Winners
• Fall Applications with Results Still to Come
• New Fellowship Opportunities for Alums
• Program Coordinator Updates

Greetings

From the National Fellowships Program!

It's been a minute since our last newsletter! We hope you've had a good spring, summer, and fall and are staying warm and cozy this winter.

We have been thrilled to see so many of our applicants recognized as finalists and winners of extremely competitive awards recently. We're excited to share highlights below of an outstanding spring and fall for Hopkins applicants! We are also grateful to have just welcomed a new senior director, though we unfortunately had to say farewell to our writing specialist this fall.



We are always grateful to hear about the wonderful things our alums are up to. Please let us know your news by emailing or connecting with us on Twitter/X, Instagram, and LinkedIn. We also encourage you to join our private groups on LinkedIn and OneHop Mentoring, where you can connect with other NFP alums and be a potential resource for JHU's current/future fellowship applicants.

Wishing you all the very best,

Kathleen M. Barry

Associate Director, National Fellowships Program

kbarry18@jhu.edu

We are delighted that Dr. Justin Lorts has joined us as Senior Director of Scholars & Fellows Programs (SFP), which includes NFP along with Kessler Scholars, Cummings Scholars (formerly Baltimore and DC Scholars), and other scholars programs to come. Justin will lead and support all of the work unfolding in Scholars & Fellows as it expands to support more students in their scholarly development, through both our cohort-based scholars programs and increased fellowships advising. 

Before joining SFP, Justin served as the Senior Director of Undergraduate Education at the JHU Life Design Lab, supporting undergraduate students in their career and life pursuits and connect them to alumni, employers, and experiential learning opportunities. Prior to arriving at Hopkins, he served in several academic affairs and advising roles at New York University and Princeton University. You can read more here. A warm welcome, Justin!

We reluctantly said farewell to Jacob Budenz this fall. Jake, as many of you know, provided fellowship applicants at Hopkins with expert writing advice delivered with his trademark blend of empathy, cheer, wit, thoughtfulness, and skill. From his initial part-time role as NFP writing tutor beginning in 2018 through his expanded role as full-time Writing Fellow in the Center for Student Success from 2021 to 2023, Jake made his student better writers and self-advocates and his fellow advisors better at teaching writing and advising. We miss him, but wish him growth and happiness in his new role as Assistant Director of Fellowship & Success Advising at Goucher College.

Reaching the semi-final or final round in a highly competitive selection process is a *huge* accomplishment. A big congratulations to the following applicants who advanced or won an award in some of the most competitive fellowship selection processes out there! (in chronological order from last spring through this fall)

Arjun Menta '25 (MD Student) – Fellow!

A prolific researcher and inventor, Arjun has multiple patents and publications. From re-engineering cooling systems to expand global vaccine access, to designing precision agriculture technology to increase crop yield, to developing intelligent medical drains to improve post-surgical outcomes, Arjun has cultivated a wide breadth of venture and translational experiences, including working at Santé Ventures and advising at A-Level Capital. In addition to his clinical training as an MD student, Arjun leads multiple research and commercialization efforts with preeminent neurosurgical physician-innovators such as Nicholas Theodore (through the HEPIUS Innovation Lab), Fernando Gonzalez, and Jordan Amadio in an effort to improve the current medical paradigm. Arjun is a co-founder of Hopkins Health Innovation & Technology Club at the School of Medicine and, in his free time, a competitive Kart driver.

Beinecke Scholarship

Funding for research-focused graduate study in the humanities, arts, and social sciences

Kendra Brewer '24 (History of Art, Spanish) – Scholar!

Kendra is JHU's first Beinecke Scholar since 2007! "Obsessed” (Kendra's word) with research from a young age, Kendra will pursue a PhD in art history specializing in the ancient arts of Mesoamerica. At JHU, she has served as an assistant at the Archaeological Museum since her sophomore year, and as a research assistant on two projects: the John Addington Symonds Project in the Classics Research Lab and on-site research at a Franciscan convent in Cuauhtinchan, Mexico last fall. As an art historian, Kendra hopes to contextualize objects in new ways to make museums more inclusive spaces and help contemporary audiences engage ancient indigenous worldviews. Kendra has also distinguished herself with her service to peers. Drawing on her own experiences as a FLI (first-generation/limited-income) student, she mentored first-year FLI students as a Peer Leader for the Hop-In Program. She has taken class notes in English and Spanish for students with disabilities, and leads the Museum Club on campus.

You can learn more about Kendra and the Beinecke Scholarship in the Hub.

Goldwater Scholarship

Top research award in U.S. for undergraduate STEM researchers

Sheila Iyer '24 (Biomedical Engineering & Computer Science) – Scholar!

Sheila focuses on genomics and plans to pursue an MD-PhD and a career exploring the roles of genomic variants in disease pathogenesis. Sheila began working with Dr. Ben Langmead in the Computer Science department even before arriving at JHU, on a project to improve genomic analysis by assessing reference bias in genome assembly. She received a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Research Award for summer 2021 to work in Dr. Steven Salzberg’s lab on a pipeline for identifying nuclear mitochondrial insertions, which can cause disease if inserted into important regulatory regions or coding genes. Since then, she has worked under Dr. Mary Armanios creating computational tools to study clonal hematopoiesis (a precursor to cancer) as an adaptive evolutionary response to telomere dynamics and to examine genes involved in telomere length. Outside of the lab and two BME design teams, she is co-head of logistics for MedHacks, an officer of both the Women’s Network and the Medical Technology Network at JHU, and a child life volunteer in the pediatric ICU at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Sumasri Kotha '24 (Neuroscience) – Scholar!

Suma has been pursuing research paths in both systems and molecular neuroscience, which she hopes to integrate as she pursues an MD-PhD and a career studying neurodegeneration and regeneration. She joined Dr. Hey-Kyoung Lee’s lab her first year, where she initially worked on synaptic plasticity circuitry. Soon after, she joined Dr. Xiaobo Mao’s lab as well, to study molecular mechanisms of tauopathy progression in neurodegeneration. She has carried out additional projects in both labs with growing independence. In the summer of 2022, Suma held a summer fellowship with Hopkins Community Connection (formerly Health Leads) to research the efficacy of two programs designed to increase patient access, work that builds on her volunteer role at HCC as a patient advocate. She also serves as editor-in-chief of Hippocrates Medical Review, vice-president of the Charm City Science League, an officer of the neuroscience honor society Nu Rho Psi, and a pediatric oncology volunteer at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Erick Rocher '24 (Biomedical Engineering) – Scholar!

Erick came to JHU excited to join Dr. Jordan Green’s lab but, because of the pandemic, took some productive detours. Amid lab closures, he worked at Lockheed Martin, where he analyzed decades of flight data to determine the root cause of the failure of an optical targeting system. At JHU, he co-founded a design team that evolved into ThermOptik, LLC, which focuses on improving tools and procedures for cataract surgery; Erick serves as Chief Research Officer. He is also currently leading a second design team that is developing a simulator to improve robotic surgical training. In summer 2022, he carried out clinical cardiology research before finally being able to join Dr. Green’s group, where he is working to realize the wide-ranging therapeutic potential of polymeric nanoparticle gene delivery. Apart from his research, Erick serves as an EMT with the Hopkins Emergency Response Organization and volunteers as a youth wrestling coach and STEM mentor, building on his two years as a varsity wrestler at JHU.

Nathan Wang '24 (Biomedical Engineering, Applied Math and Statistics) – Scholar!

Nathan is devoted to synergizing AI and neuroscience. He joined Dr. Xingde Li’s lab his first year, where he has worked to develop deep learning models for disease treatment and animal behavior modeling using optical imaging. In summer 2022, he joined a team at the NIH’s Functional Neurosurgery Lab where he seeks correlations between image features extracted with state-of-the-art neural networks and brain signals collected during human visual memory tasks. He is also independently developing a project in collaboration with Dr. Xun Jia’s X-ray lab at JHU to explore CT thermometry’s ability to improve the safety and outcomes of thermal ablation therapies for cancer. Beyond the lab, Nathan has seen his idea for funding K-12 AI education, which he pitched to Congressman Paul Tonka during a high school civics program, become part of a federal bill. He worked with the Congressman’s legislative team to draft H.R. 8390: the AI Education Act, which was incorporated into the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. 

You can learn more about JHU's 2023 Goldwater Scholars in the Hub.

Fulbright U.K. Summer Institutes

Fully funded study programs at six UK universities, for 1st- and 2nd-year undergraduates who have little to no travel experience outside North America

Arionna Bell '26 (Molecular & Cellular Biology) – Summer 2023 Participant!

Arionna was was one of just seven U.S. students selected to participate in the 2023 Fulbright UK Summer Institute at the University of Bristol on Arts, Activism and Social Justice! An aspiring physician and advocate deeply committed to understanding and challenging systemic barriers, Arionna was inspired to apply for this opportunity to study abroad by her father's words before she left for college: "exposure leads to expansion." Before arriving at JHU, Arionna earned her black belt in Taekwondo and was named Outstanding Senator at Girls Nation in Washington, DC, where she represented her home state of South Carolina. At Hopkins, she volunteers with Hopkins Votes and is working in particular to demystify the complexities surrounding absentee voting for other out-of-state students.

Astronaut Scholarship

Research award for undergraduate STEM researchers

Bryan Dong ’24 (Neuroscience) – Scholar!

Bryan's explorations in neuroscience research began in high school, in Dr. Fengquan Zhao's lab at the JHU School of Medicine, and continued after Bryan arrived at Hopkins as an undergraduate. His focus in working with Dr. Zhao, and more recently Dr. Xu Cao, has been on epigenetic regulation of axon regeneration in the peripheral and central nervous systems. Bryan has also expanded his skills in behavioral research labs. During the summers of 2019 and 2021, internships at the NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse enabled him to investigate the role of nucleus accumbens in regulating compulsive behaviors, and an Amgen Scholarship at Caltech in summer 2022 allowed him to study hypothalamus processing of aggression in mice. Beyond the lab, Bryan is the founder and president of the JHU Brain Exercise Initiative, serves as treasurer and a saxophonist for the JHU Wind Ensemble, writes for the Hippocrates Medical Review, and is a TA for Neuroscience: Cellular and Systems.

Erick Rocher '24 (Biomedical Engineering) – Scholar!

Erick was also awarded a 2023 Goldwater Scholarship! Please see his bio above.

Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs

Nine-month experiential leadership training programs in five U.S. cities

Lubna Azmi ’23 (International Studies & Sociology) – New York City Fellow!

Lubna had the wonderful challenge of needing to choose among three fellowship offers last spring, in recognition of her exceptional leadership and service credentials (she chose the Coro Fellowship). Upon arriving at Hopkins, Lubna immediately dove into social justice-oriented research as a Special Collections First-Year Fellow, researching and writing about the history of racial justice activism at JHU. She also was awarded a Baltimore Collegetown Fellowship and worked alongside juniors and seniors from area campuses to devise a workforce development plan for Baltimore City. When the pandemic hit, Lubna used her growing organizing, networking, and outreach skills to co-found the Prince William County Mutual Aid Network in her hometown in Virginia to support food distribution and connect neighbors in need with those who could help. Internships with Democracy International focused on Liberia and South Sudan, with the Maryland Public Interest Research Group focused on voter education, and with Wide Angle Youth Media focused on the role of media in advocacy work, have all further inspired Lubna’s commitment to the power of policy change, organizing, and engagement. Lubna also contributed to the Hopkins community by covering university and affairs for The News-Letter.

Maya Johnson ’24 (Neuroscience) – Finalist

Maya discovered early on, as a thirteen-year-old in a summer neuroscience program, that she wanted to be in the fight against glioblastoma. At JHU, she has embraced that mission in the Laterra and Lopez Bertoni Neuro-Oncology Labs, researching the use of microRNA as a therapeutic agent for recurrent Glioblastoma multiforme, the most aggressive and lethal brain tumor. She has carried out additional research focused on SARS-Cov-2: at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia she analyzed single cell RNA-sequencing data looking for connections among immune cell types, viral loads and hospital outcomes; and as part of an international collaboration (COVID-19 International Research Team) she studied upregulated genes and tissue damage in Covid patients. Maya balances research with being co-captain of the JHU Women's Basketball Team, serving as a Facility Manager at the O'Connor Rec Center, and a long list of service-driven commitments, including being a lead math tutor and mental health education for elementary students at the Henderson-Hopkins School, college application advisor for Matriculate, and volunteer for Lori's Hand, which connects college students with to community members living with chronic illnesses.

Isabel Plakas ’24 (MSN, School of Nursing) – Scholar!

Isabel has devoted herself for the past five years to becoming a specialist in harm reduction. While at Bryn Mawr, Isabel spent her junior spring studying abroad in Madrid, where she worked for Médicos del Mundo offering health and educational support services to local sex workers. Her senior year, she served as a harm reduction intern at the community-based Project SAFE in Philadelphia. After graduating in 2019, she spent the next three years with Boston Health Care for the Homeless running a mobile medical clinic. In 2020, she was recruited to serve additionally as a harm reduction specialist at a 1,000-bed medical center for unhoused people recovering from Covid-19 infection. She spent evenings working to prevent overdose fatalities at a time of rising overdoses due to acute stress and isolation, delivering vaccines, and creating educational materials on coronavirus. Upon arriving at Hopkins in 2022, she became co-president of Nursing Students for Harm Reduction which works to train fellow students in harm reduction practices and address gaps in the nursing curriculum. As a SOURCE Scholar, she also quickly went to work for SPARC, a harm reduction drop-in center and outreach program for women and non-binary individuals in Southwest Baltimore, where she serves as overdose response educator and HIV counselor and tester. With the Mitchell Scholarship, Isabel will earn an MSc in Addiction Recovery at Trinity College Dublin.

You can learn more about Isabel and the Mitchell Scholarship in the Hub.

Rhodes Scholarship

Funding for two years of graduate study at the University of Oxford

Abigail Admase ’23 (Public Health Studies, Sociology) – Finalist

A high school internship at an Ethiopian hospital, where Abby saw barriers to quality health care in a limited-resource environment, sparked an enduring commitment to improving access to care for marginalized, underserved groups. In her first year at JHU, she won a Woodrow Wilson fellowship to carry out research on oral HPV detection in Pune, India, resulting in a first-author publication in BMC Infectious Diseases. Abby spent the summer of 2022 in the CDC-funded Summer Public Health Scholars Program at Columbia University, where she earned two top prizes for her work, including for her research on the effects of U.S. immigration policies on the mental health of children in undocumented and mixed-status households; that work was subsequently featured in the CDC’s online Health Equity Matters newsletter. For her honors thesis in public health, she investigated social stigmas and methadone retention outcomes at Muhimbili methadone clinic in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Abby's commitment to alleviating health disparities made her a highly valued contributor at Hopkins Health Connection (formerly Health Leads). She devoted many hours to serving as a patient advocate at the Harriet Lane Clinic in Baltimore, while also designing an assessment project to find quality of care improvements and serving as triage coordinator, mentoring and supporting her fellow patient advocates.

Cleo Bluthenthal ’24 (Public Health Studies) – Finalist

Cleo’s dedication to social equity and justice is threaded through her research, advocacy, and community work. In her first year at Hopkins, she received a Woodrow Wilson fellowship to study the relationship between cardiovascular complications of pregnancy and resulting preterm birth among black and white women in the United States. She served as a research assistant to Dr. Susan Sherman for a study that surveyed trust in public agencies as information sources during the pandemic among women engaged in sex work and injection drug use. This past summer, Cleo interned at the Center for American Progress, where she researched and wrote “The Disproportionate Burden of Eviction on Black Women” and co-authored “Tackling the Opioid Crisis Requires a Whole-of-Government, Society-Wide Approach.” Cleo’s community involvement began early in her hometown of Los Angeles, where at age 13 she started volunteering with a local needle exchange program. In high school, she joined the Families Forward Learning Center (FFLC) to provide free education and social services to low-income, often immigrant families. She was the impetus behind Teen Lead—a volunteer training program that engaged 300 volunteers, developed volunteer appreciation and engagement programs, and raised over $4,000 for FFLC. Under Cleo’s leadership, Teen Lead organized food drop-offs and offered Zoom tutoring during the COVID-19 pandemic. The California Senate awarded Cleo and Teen Leads a State Commendation for their success. 

Maya Johnson ’24 (Neuroscience) – Finalist



Maya was also a finalist for the Mitchell Scholarship! Please see her bio above.

Hesu Song ’23 (Political Science, International Studies) – Finalist

As an aspiring academic and policy advisor in international relations, Hesu seeks to provoke rethinking of how U.S.-China relations are typically cast in an adversarial, zero-sum “realist” frame. In his senior thesis, he applied discourse analysis to American and Chinese diplomats’ statements to understand how each side casts the other as a threat to the world order, work that built on previous research projects on China that Hesu carried out as a research assistant to Professor Steven David. Hesu’s inclination to question established approaches has been shaped by the diverse experiences he has sought out. After a year and a half at JHU, Hesu took an extended leave of absence to serve as a missionary and English teacher for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Calgary, Alberta. Back at JHU, he sought out summer internships at Goldman Sachs in compliance and at the White House in the Office of Presidential Correspondence to better understand institutions that lend themselves to easy criticism and partisan rancor. Hesu has honed his listening skills not just in his research, service and professional experiences, but also in music, too, as a member of a capella group Humming Jay. Currently, in his first year post-graduation, Hesu is teaching English again, at the University of Finance and Economics in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, as a Princeton in Asia Fellow. 

Halle Teart ’23 (Sociology, Africana Studies) – Finalist

Halle is devoted to analyzing and addressing policy challenges. In a wide range of internships, she has explored policy and law from multiple angles in Baltimore and her family home of Bermuda, in public, non-profit and private sectors, touching on areas including education, labor, prisons, food sustainability, and immigration and asylum. In her senior thesis, she studied colonialism and policing in Bermuda, and earlier joined with peers at Hopkins to publish a policy brief on COVID-19 emergency rental assistance programs. Outside of the classroom and office, Halle served at JHU as president of the Mu Psi Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and a member of the SGA’s Policy Research & Development Commission; worked to expand the presence of Black studies, spaces, and people as a student worker at the Center for Africana Studies; and was an active member of Knotty by Nature, a natural hair club. In Bermuda, she co-founded Bermuda Youth Connect, which consults with several government ministries on youth engagement and aims to reach youth through a column in Bermuda’s daily newspaper and a podcast. Currently, Halle is a human capital analyst at Deloitte, where she has worked on several federal labor and workforce development projects.

Alexandra (Zandy) Wong ’24 (Public Health Studies) – Scholar!

Dominique Regli ’24 (Engineering Mechanics) – Finalist

Dominique's interest in robotics and engineering stems from her time contributing to and leading her high school's FIRST Robotics team, which won the World Championship in 2019. At JHU, she transitioned from FIRST to Baja SAE competitions, leading the frame subsystem design and build for Blue Jay Racing. She also delved into design and research projects. In the IMERSE lab, she designed a system to integrate a force sensor onto the Da Vinci surgery robot to provide haptic feedback to surgeons. In successive summer internships at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, DEKA Research & Development, and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, she has worked on a predictive model for cutting forces experienced by machine tools and contributed to medical device and packaging design, among other projects. Deeply committed to the value of mentorship, Dominique has devoted her free time to leading PILOT sessions for the Gateway Computing: Java course, serving as music director for her a capella group Sirens, organizing social and professional events for JH Women of Mechanical Engineering, and volunteering as a FIRST Robotics game announcer and emcee.

Alexandra (Zandy) Wong ’24 (Public Health Studies) – Finalist

In addition to being a Rhodes finalist and winner this fall, Zandy was a finalist for the Marshall Scholarship! Please see her bio above.

Schwarzman Scholars Program

Master’s degree in Global Affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing

Renee Liu ’23 (Biomedical Engineering) – Scholar!

Renee was drawn to the Schwarzman Scholars Program for the opportunity to better understand global health and the medical system in China, with the hope of promoting greater collaboration with the U.S. in the medical field. From the moment she arrived at JHU to her early graduation three years later, Renee worked in Dr. Walter Grayson’s lab on machine preservation of tissues. She also served on two design teams and led a third that worked on a bioresorbable spring to aid in craniosynostosis surgery. Outside of her research and studies, Renee earned NCAA All-American status as a swimmer and was in the top 10 in the country for the 200-yard backstroke. She also deepened her commitment to supporting the Special Olympics, having coached Special Olympics swimmers in high school, by serving as the JHU chapter's vice president. After graduation, Renee joined the ophthalmology department at Massachusetts Eye and Ear where she works on projects related to the genetics of different ocular diseases. One research project took her to India, where she helped develop and disseminate an app called PocDoc, which gives users access to a suite of vision tests, normally only available in clinics, for vision testing in low-resource/rural settings.

You can learn more about Renee and the Schwarzman Scholars Program in the Hub.

Gates Cambridge Scholarship

Funding for one to three years of graduate study at the University of Cambridge

Ishan Kalburge ’23 (BME, Applied Math &Statistics, Economics) – Scholar!

Ishan has honed his interest in using computational neuroscience to model human decision-making through wide-ranging research experiences. At JHU, he has studied “cognitive reframing” in Dr. Vikram Chib's lab. In Dr. Colin Camerer's lab at Caltech, he developed a project on modeling "bursty" behavior (alternating between inactivity and bursts of activity). Working with Dr. Joshua Gold at the University of Pennsylvania, he has devised experiments to explore strategies people use to make decisions for maximum rewards when there is a trade-off between being informed and acting fast. Outside the lab, Ishan served as News & Features Editor for The News-Letter his sophomore year and as a TA for four AMS courses starting in the spring of his first year. He was active in leadership of the Biomedical Engineering Society chapter at JHU and served most recently as its president. At Cambridge, Ishan will pursue a PhD in Engineering at Cambridge, working with Professor Máté Lengyel in the Computational and Biological Learning Laboratory on representations of uncertainty in cognitive information processing.

You can read more about Ishan and the Gates Cambridge Scholarship in the Hub.

Fulbright U.S. Student Program 2023-24 Grant Winners!

Johns Hopkins University was recently named a top producer of Fulbright U.S. Student Program grants for the 14th consecutive year. Even more exciting, Johns Hopkins had the highest percentage of winning applications – 51% – among all top producing institutions in the doctoral-granting institutions category for student grants for 2023-24. Kudos to our amazing applicants!

We celebrated each 2023-24 grantee on Instagram and our LinkedIn group - we invite you to learn more about them and their projects there.

Fulbright U.S. Student Program

In our latest application cycle, we advised 30 applicants for Study/Research awards in 22 countries, and 19 applicants for English Teaching Assistantships in 9 countries. Thirty-nine (nearly 80%) of this year's applicants have been named semi-finalists! They are now waiting for their individual countries to select grant winners later this spring.

P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans

We are amazed and delighted to have worked with seven (!) finalists for the P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans who are current Hopkins graduate students or alums of JHU. This year, 77 candidates were named finalists from around 2,500 applicants, and thirty fellowships will be awarded in April.

DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Scholarships & Grants

We worked with three doctoral-level applicants for one-year research grants to Germany. Final results are expected in late March or early April.

Gaither Junior Fellows Program

We worked with two applicants and nominated one senior for this research internship at the Carnegie International Endowment for Peace. Interview invitations are due any day now...

Hertz Fellowship

We supported two applicants for this five-year award to fully fund a STEM PhD. We are excited to share that JHU senior Dana Kachman is a finalist, having recently moved forward from the semi-finalist round. Awards should be announced in late March. Fingers crossed for Dana!

Knight-Hennessy Scholarship

We are very happy to note that a recent JHU alum is a finalist for the Knight- Hennessy Scholarship, which provides up to three years of funding toward a graduate degree in any discipline at Stanford University. Finalists are gearing up for Knight-Hennessy's signature "immersion weekend" at Stanford at the start of March, the last stage in the selection process.

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

We helped 25 applicants with their personal statements for this three-year graduate fellowship in STEM fields. Final results are expected in late March.

New Fellowship Opportunities for Alums

Thinking about graduate school or already working on a graduate degree? These new awards launched in the past few years may be of interest:

The Quad Fellowship is awarded to 100 exceptional students from the Quad countries - the U.S., Japan, Australia, and India - or one of the 10 ASEAN countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, or Vietnam) who are or will be pursuing master’s and doctoral students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the U.S. Five current JHU PhD students plus NFP alums Maya Foster ’20 (currently at Yale) and Rebecca Yu '22 (currently at Carnegie Mellon) were part of the inaugural cohort of Quad Fellows. You can read more in the Hub. The Quad Fellowship application for the second cohort is open now and is due on April 1.

Samvid Scholars selects about 20 students or recent graduates who are preparing to begin a fulltime MD, MBA, JD, MPP, MPH, EdD, or MS/MA in the social sciences or STEM and aspire to be changemakers. The Samvid Scholars application is open now and is due on April 7.

McCall MacBain Scholarships fully fund a master’s or professional degree at McGill University, while connecting scholars with mentors and participating in an intensive leadership development program. The next application cycle for McCall MacBain Scholarships will open this summer and be due in Septembers (dates TBD).

Program Coordinator Updates

As many of you know, our graduate student program coordinators are an important part of our team. Here are some updates on doctorates granted and new team members:

Nathan Daniels, after a long tenure as advisor to Fulbright, Boren, and other fellowship applicants and wrangler/master of all things tech-related for us, left NFP this spring, after defending his dissertation on minstrels in Medieval Paris and completing his doctorate in History. Congratulations, Dr. Daniels - we miss you!

And we are delighted to congratulate Thai-Catherine Matthews, who has been with us since 2022, on defending her doctoral thesis in medieval English literature at the end of the fall semester. Congratulations, Dr. Matthews!

We welcomed three new program coordinators last spring:

Rhiannon Clarke, PhD candidate in Spanish literature. As a former Fulbright ETA in Argentina and English teacher in Indonesia with the Peace Corps, Rhiannon hit the ground running advising Fulbright ETA applicants this summer. She is carving out a specialty advising on fellowships for study abroad and helping Chelsey Jones support Cummings Scholars, another program in SFP.

Nathan McCabe, PhD in Comparative Thought & Literature (his dissertation: "Not Art Yet: American Modernists on Early Cinema"). Nate had just finished his doctorate before joining us and has helped applicants to Fulbright and other awards with project proposals and especially personal statements. He moved to Colorado in the fall, to begin a full-time teaching role at the Colorado School of Mines, but is still thankfully contributing to fellowship advising with NFP.

Tegan White-Nesbitt, PhD candidate in German literature. After working with Fulbright applicants this summer, Tegan focused on providing innovative programming this fall for Kessler Scholars, another SFP program, led by Brent Fujioka. Tegan has departed to take up a teaching position at Howard University this spring and to focus on finishing and defending her dissertation. We thank Tegan and wish her all the best in this exciting transition.

Thanks for reading!