Fellowship Recipients
Watson Fellowship
Confronting Entropy: Elder Care in an Aging World
Hometown: San Francisco
Major: biology and film and media studies
Interests: documentary film, rugby, nursing homes
Best Travel Experience: visiting distant relatives in La Marche, Italy.
What People Don't Know About Me: I always listen to music with my headphones on full volume.
Words to live by: If it's exciting and scary, you should probably do it.
Fulbright U.S. Student Program
English Teaching Assistantship, Malaysia
Hometown: Minnetonka, Minnesota
Major: Chemistry-Environmental Studies
Interests: Trail running, creative nonfiction, outdoor education
Best travel experience: Camping in Iceland with Whitties the summer after graduation.
What people don't know about me: I love to take in new landscapes in a creative way. Whenever I travel or go on long hikes, I bring my watercolor paints and moleskin notebook along. I think art and poetry are wonderful ways to explore the colors, culture and world around you.
Word to live by: "UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." (Dr. Seuss, The Lorax)
Watson Fellowship
Independent travel and study in Brazil, Madagascar, Indonesia, Malaysia and Russia
Hometown: Seattle, Washington
Major: Biology-Environmental Studies
Interests: wildlife disease, geckos, collaborative survival with microbes, the Anthropocene extinction, Ultimate frisbee
Best travel experience: Bathing in streams everywhere I go, whether I'm sitting under a pounding waterfall in Brazil or pouring gold-flecked water over myself in Madagascar.
What people don't know about me: My spirit primate is the greater dwarf lemur because it cradles its nest in a tree fern.
Words to live by: "I've been watching stars rely on the darkness they resist." (Mark Nepo)
Watson Fellowship
Independent travel and study in Australia, Chile, Japan and Nepal
Hometown: Seattle, Washington
Major: Environmental Sociology
Interests: Climbing, skiing, kayaking, surfing, reading, writing, making new friends
Favorite memory: Learning a new language or being chased by a kangaroo.
Words to live by: Don't be afraid to allow your heart to be as big as it can possibly be.
Capital Fellows Programs
Executive Program, California State Government, Sacramento
Major: Gender Studies
Interests: Social justice, fashion, indie music
Best travel experience: Seattle, post-graduation, because if you go to Whitman then that's where all your friends move to.
What people don't know about me: I once got kicked out of a game of Bananagrams for winning too much.
Words to live by: "It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate. It takes strength to be gentle and kind." (Morrissey)
French Teaching Assistants Program (TAPIF)
English Teaching Assistantship, Bordeaux
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Major: Sociology
Interests: Travel, French language, cycling
Best travel experience: I have found travel to be the most rewarding when I stay several weeks or months in one place and integrate into the culture.
What people don't know about me: I have an EU passport, making my life abroad about 100 times easier.
Words to live by: "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." (Dr. Seuss)
French Teaching Assistants Program (TAPIF)
English Teaching Assistantship, Orleans-Tours
Hometown: Sequim, Washington
Major: English
Interests: Creative writing, music, solo travel, history, running, cooking, strange outfits, Corgis
Best travel experience: I'm living it right now!
What people don't know about me: I take a really long time to grocery shop.
Words to live by: "Live your emotional truth, man." (my stellar English friend Rosanna)
Beinecke Scholarship
Graduate study in the arts, humanities and social sciences
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute
Hometown: Everett, Washington
Major: B.A, Foreign Languages and Literatures: Spanish (with honors)
Interests: Pre K-12 Education Policy. I have a passion for, and a commitment to, serving our youth. I am passionate about contributing my time and effort toward diminishing inter-generational poverty, mentoring young people and engaging my community to become civically engaged.
Best travel experience: Toledo, España
What people don't know about me: Spanish is my third language. My primary language is Mixteco. I learned English in grade school. I began taking Spanish classes in high school because I wanted to fit in as a Mexican, as a Latina.
Words to live by: Be kind. Work hard. Practice self-care. Serve with humility. Go through all experiences with an open heart and an open mind. And, always remember: "¡Si se puede!"
Fulbright U.S. Student Program
English Teaching Assistantship, Malaysia
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Major: Geology
Interests: Summer, podcasts, running, taking showers, going on adventures
Best travel experience: Going to Los Angeles and the ocean with my cross country team.
What people don't know about me: Before I saw it for myself in college, I thought the Milky Way was a myth.
Words to live by: "Climb the mountain not to plant your flag but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air, and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can
see you." (David McCullough Jr.)
Core Fellows Program
Fellow in Public Affairs at FOCUS, St. Louis, Missouri
Hometown: Sacramento
Major: History
Interests: Running slowly and reading long form journalism
Best travel experience: Trying to find a train with friends in the Czech countryside while studying abroad.
What people don't know about me: I love listening to Top 40 in the car.
Words to live by: "Go to where the silence is and say something." -- Amy Goodman
Princeton in Asia Fellowship
Environmental Conservation with TRAFFIC, Hanoi, Vietnam
Hometown: Quito, Ecuador
Interests/pleasures: Charcoal drawing, dancing, running, writing
Best travel experience: Visiting Burma's ancient capital, Bagan, in 2011
What people don't know about me: I really wish I could sing well.
Words to live by: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." (Dr. Seuss)
Fulbright U.S. Student Program
English teaching assistantship, Bolu, Turkey
Hometown: Seattle, Washington
Interests/pleasures: teaching, cooking, preserving food, backgammon, painting
Best travel experience: Trying a macaroon for the first time in Paris when I was 13. We called them "dessert hamburgers"!
What people don't know about me: I could grow old happily in Walla Walla.
Words to live by: "Alice laughed. ‘One can't believe impossible things.' ‘I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. ‘. . .Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'"
(Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 1871)
DAAD InternXchange Program
Radio journalism and production, Berlin, Germany
Hometown: Seattle, WashingtonMajor: German Studies
Interests/pleasures: radio, music, journalism, travel, languages
Best travel experience: Wandering Istanbul with my Kumpels.
What people don't know about me: Although I keep ending up in landlocked places, I love surfing. In my old age, I will become a beach bum.
Words to live by: "All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night . . . wake in the day to find out that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." (T.E. Lawrence)
French Teaching Assistants Program (TAPIF)
English teaching assistantship, Auch, France
Hometown: Hermosa Beach, California
Major: Foreign Languages and Literatures (French)
Interests/pleasures: Reading, new foods, museum-hopping, cats
Best travel experience: Marseille, Aix-en-Provence and Arles, Fall 2012
What people don't know about me: I have a male alter ego named Carl.
Words to live by: "Il est utile de connaître d'autres langues que la sienna . . . C'est comme de connaître d'autres gens, d'autres pays." ("It is useful to know languages other than your own . . . It's like knowing other people, other countries.") (Assia Djebar)
Goldwater Scholarship
Science research scholarship
Hometown: Anchorage, Alaska
Major: Biology
Interests/pleasures: biology, reading, foreign-exchange markets, technical writing, flightless birds, human evolution, carotenoids
Best travel experience: Italy, 2011, with professors Chris Wallace and Ginger Withers for International Brain Organization World Congress.
What people don't know about me: I've always wanted to live in Arizona.
Words to live by: "Theories have four stages of acceptance: 1) this is worthless; 2)this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view; 3)this is true, but quite unimportant; 4) I always said so." (J.B.S. Haldane)
DAAD Summer Study Grant
German studies, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
Hometown: Carson City, NevadaMajor: English
Interests/pleasures: writing, reading, swimming, magic, music (The Gathering)
Best travel experience: climbing the Volkerschlacht Denkmal in Leipzig, a massive memorial commemorating the defeat of Napoleon near Leipzig.
What people don't know about me: While I'm an introvert at heart, I really enjoy meeting new people, even if I don't show it at the time.
Words to live by: "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams." (Arthur Edgar O'Shaughnessy)
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship
Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Hometown: Bainbridge Island, WashingtonMajor: Applied Physics (through the 3/2 program)
Interests/pleasures: skiing, basketball, sailing, baseball, coffee
Best travel experience: Sailing with my family in the San Juan Islands.
What people don't know about me: I worked for a summer at a salmon processing plant in Alaska.
Words to live by: "Ask people how they got there, because I guarantee that no one took a direct path with no detours."
Watson Fellowship
Independent travel and study in Belgium, France, Egypt, UAE, China
Hometown: Seattle, WashingtonMajor: History
Interests/pleasures: cycling, chocolate fondue, people, "oldies" records
Best travel experience: An 88-hour bus trip across Senegal and Mali.
What people don't know about me: I'm a scholar of British romantic comedies.
Words to live by: "If things start happening, don't worry. Don't stew. Just go right along, and you'll start happening too." (Dr. Seuss)
Fulbright U.S. Student Program
Hindi studies, Jaipur, India
Hometown: Bellingham, Washington
Major: English
Interests/pleasures: creative writing, Drama Club, The Pioneer
Best travel experience: Study abroad in India, 2010.
What people don't know about me: In high school I was a member of a mime troupe.
Words to live by: "Vertigo is the conflict between fear of falling and the desire to fall" (Rushdie)
Fulbright U.S. Student Program
English teaching assistantship, India
Hometown: Walla Walla, Washington
Interests/pleasures: Music, food, playing drums, travel, reading, baseball, trying to speak foreign languages
Best travel experience: Independent study project in Bodhgaya, India, on study abroad, 2007.
What people don't know about me: I'm a synaesthete; I experience music and sound as colorful, visual shapes and landscapes in my mind's eye.
Words to live by: "How strange it is to be anything at all." (Jeff Mangum)
Watson Fellowship
Independent travel and study in United Kingdom, India, Nepal, South Africa and Colombia
Hometown: Seattle, Washington
Major: Psychology
Interests/pleasures: Music, hiking, new ways to dance and move, baking, slacklining, chocolate, rafting, languages, swimming, travel, new instruments
Best travel experience: Going to a friend's village to visit his family for Teej, the women's festival, in Nepal.
What people don't know about me: My feet are as flat as a pancake.
Words to live by: "Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." (Rumi)
Davis Projects for Peace
“Building Community and Ultimate Peace,” Colombia
Hometown: Seattle, WashingtonMajor: Social Psychology
Interests/pleasures: international travel, Ultimate Frisbee, ceramics, whitewater rafting, snowboarding
Best travel experience: Hearing our team's name echo from the stadium speakers as World Champion and "Spirit of the Game" award recipient for sportsmanship. Never have I had a prouder moment as a coach.
What people don't know about me: Growing up, I spent multiple nights sleeping in igloos on snowboarding trips in the Northwest.
Words to live by: Live in the moment and cherish every moment.
Beinecke Scholarship
Funding for graduate study in arts, humanities or social sciences
Hometown: Glendale, WisconsinMajor: English
Interests/pleasures: Literature, literary theory, continental philosophy, swimming, ceramics, French, cats, board games
Best travel experience: study abroad in Paris.
What people don't know about me: I was not born in the United States.
Words to live by: "It is as if I am indebted to - I don't know to whom - to thinking responsibly. I am in a situation of trying to learn to whom, finally, I am responsible." (Jacques Derrida)
Killam Fellowship
Independent study, University of Alberta
Hometown: Missoula, MontanaMajor: BBMB (Biophysics, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
Interests/pleasures: biking, skiing, hunting
Best travel experience: Killam vs. Fulbright hockey game in Ottawa.
What people don't know about me: My favorite season is fall.
Words to live by: Git 'r done.
Critical Language Scholarship
Korean Studies, Yonsei University, Wonju, Korea
Hometown: San Francisco, California
Major: Film and Media Studies
Interests/pleasures: Language learning, astronomy, reading, writing, filmmaking, karaoke, blogging, badminton, contemplating about the meaning of life
Best travel experience: Whitman Summer Studies in China - Yunnan
What people don't know about me: I aspire to learn fluent Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Words to live by: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
Fulbright U.K. Summer Institutes
Academic study, Wales Summer Institute
Hometown: New Bedford, Massachusetts
Interests/pleasures: Being a writer who doesn't write and a reader who never has time to read; alternatively, dogs and keeping my ears warm
Best travel experience: A night on the town in Aberystwyth, Wales
What people don't know about me: I wrote a book! I'm still editing it, though.
Words to live by: "Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens." - J.R.R. Tolkien
Fulbright U.S. Student Program
English Teaching Assistantship, Argentina
Hometown: Olympia, WashingtonMajors: Spanish, Philosophy
Interests/pleasures: Creative writing, foreign languages, drawing, animals
Best travel experience: the walk from the Blue Mosque to the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul
What people don't know about me: I keep a detailed dream journal.
Words to live by: "Let the beauty of what you love be what you do." -Rumi
Fulbright U.S. Student Program
Research: Arsenic contamination and human health, Mexico
Hometown: Granby, ColoradoMajor: Chemistry
Interests/pleasures: oatmeal, coffee, socks
Best travel experience: saving a trapped donkey in Spain
What people don't know about me: I consider all squirrels to be my arch nemeses.
Words to live by: "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
NIH/IRTA
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, Maryland
Hometown: Monte Sereno, CaliforniaMajor: Biology
Interests/pleasures: Sharks, hiking, brains
Best travel experience: Nine hours in New York
What people don't know about me: Eating ice cream as a full meal is acceptable at all hours
Words to live by: "All things grow."
Fulbright U.S. Student Program
English Teaching Assistantship, Czech Republic
Hometown: Long Beach, California
Major: English
Interests/pleasures: Beach volleyball, languages, films, books, music (whatever, whenever)
Best travel experience: reading Ulysses aloud in Dublin with a bunch of Irish seniors
What people don't know about me: I write reminders on my hands every day.
Words to live by: "to hate/is an easy lazy thing/but to love/takes strength/ everyone has/but not all are/willing to practice" - Rupi Kaur
Watson Fellowship, Fulbright, Udall Scholarship (2), Goldwater Scholarship, Hollings Scholarship
Environmental studies and leadership
Hometown: Seattle, WashingtonMajor: Biology-Environmental Studies
Interests: Ultimate Frisbee, birding, raising meat rabbits
Best travel experience: floating the Tiputini River in the Amazon rainforest during my sophomore year abroad
What people don't know about me: I started college as a dairy science major.
Words to live by: "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it." - Neil deGrasse Tyson
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Organismal biology, University of Hawaii
Hometown: Lafayette, CaliforniaMajors: Biology, German Studies
Interests/pleasures: Walks in pretty places, crochet, coffee, books, fruit, "Star Trek"
Best travel experience: adventures in New Zealand
Words to live by: "Connect."
Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Marshall Scholarship finalist
English Teaching Assistantship, Colombia
Hometown: Seattle, WashingtonMajor: Anthropology
Interests: reading, especially murder mysteries or anything macabre; drawing; new places; new and weird foods.
Best travel experience: hitching a ride on a tractor in Chile or encountering a family of howler monkeys while hiking along Colombia's Pacific Coast
What people don't know about me: I love to collect new words. I have sticky notes and old receipts with new words littering my purse and every drawer.
Words to live by: "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." - Oscar Wilde
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Cell biology, Stanford University
Hometown: Palo Alto, CaliforniaMajor: Biology
Interests/pleasures: hiking, skiing, gardening
Best travel experience: backpacking in Kings Canyon National Park, California
Udall Scholarship
Environmental Studies Scholarship
Hometown: New YorkMajor: Environmental Studies- Politics
Interests: Environmental policy, climate action, environmental education, and all things energy!
Best travel experience: Going to Montreal with two of my best friends over winter break on the coldest week of the year. All we had was a bulk pack of Hostess pink snowballs, a newly-rented Ford Fiesta, and a semblance of a plan.
What people don't know about me: I'm addicted to Cherry Pepsi and country music.
Words to live by: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." -MLK
Austrian Teaching Assistantship Program
English Teaching Assistant, Austria
Hometown: Boulder, ColoradoMajor: Gender Studies
Interests: Since being in Austria, I have tried slam poetry, partner ballroom dance classes and reporting on the radio.
Best travel experience: I loved seeing Venice during the high water and dancing in the flooded Piazza San Marco to the live orchestral music.
What people don't know about me: My room has a chandelier with glass fruit on it!
Words to live by: "Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open."-Albus Dumbledore
Princeton in Asia
English teaching assistantship, KIMEP University, Kazakhstan
Hometown: Corvallis, OregonMajor: BBMB
Interests: Cross-country skiing, Russian language, and musical theater
Best travel experience: For winter break, I stuck around in Kazakhstan. It was a break chock-full of skiing, curriculum development, and exploring downtown Almaty's vibrant nightlife.
What people don't know about me: My age! Some of my students are my age, or even older. I try not to reveal that.
Words to live by: There's an interesting Russian equivalent to our "no pain, no gain," that goes: "without effort, you can't even pull a fish out of the pond."
French Teaching Assistantship
English teaching assistantship, Lyon, France
Hometown: San Carlos, CaliforniaMajor: Biology
Interests: Gelato, yoga, coffee, guitar, and new languages
Best travel experience: Volunteering at an animal rescue sanctuary in Costa Rica
What people don't know about me: I love spending time in airports
Words to live by: "I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it" - Pablo Picasso
Princeton in Asia
International Water Management Institute, Kathmandu, Nepal
Hometown: Danville, CaliforniaMajor: Environmental Studies-Biology
Interests: Plants and baseball
Best travel experience: Can't go wrong with couchsurfing.com
What people don't know about me: Six toes on my left foot
Words to live by: Defense wins championships
Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship
Academic funding and summer training from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Hometown: Redmond, WashingtonMajor: Biology
Interests: Being outside as much as possible
Best travel experience: Watching thunderstorms roll over the mountains of New Mexico
What people don't know about me: I have yet to find a fruit I don't like
Words to live by: If there is anything you can do to help, do it even if you think it is too small to make a difference
Fulbright U.S. Student Program
English teaching assistant, Mexico
Hometown: Vista, CaliforniaMajor: Biology and Spanish
Interests: bike touring, backpacking, skiing, photography, and flying
Best travel experience: Solo biking 4,558 miles from Astoria, OR to Yorktown, VA on the TransAmerica Trail
What people don't know about me: I love any and all forms of melodic percussion
Words to live by: "The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." -Christopher McCandless
Fulbright U.S. Student Program
English teaching assistant, Malaysia
Hometown: Salt Lake City, Utah Major(s): Studio Art and Psychology
Interests: You can find me scaling mountains, skiing, and scuba diving. I love art of any form, but especially painting. I also enjoy strumming on my guitar.
Best Travel Experience: In Malaysia I got tattooed by the Iban people of Sarawak. My tattoo is the bundas terong: an eggplant flower containing the rope of life (a spiral). Iban men are given this tattoo when they leave on their berjalai (walk), to explore the outside world.
What people don't know about me: I love to dance. While in Malaysia I'm trying to learn traditional dances as well as dance to some live music at a good watering hole.
Words to live by: You can do anything you want, just make sure you help others.
Lantos/HIA Congressional Fellowship
Appointment to the office of U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.)
Hometown: San Francisco, California
Major: Psychology
Best travel experience: backpacking across Europe by myself
What people don't know about me: I can't drive, swim or ride a bike
Words to live by: "Your silence will not protect you." -Audre Lorde
Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs
Leadership training
Hometown: Mill Valley, California
Interests/pleasures: Running, climbing, reading science fiction
Best travel experience: Semester abroad in Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo
What people don't know about me: I can't watch horror movies because I get too scared.
Words to live by: "If we were supposed to talk more than we listen, we would have two mouths and one ear." (Mark Twain)