07. 28. 2022

The Graduate School is pleased to announce the 2022-2023 Fulbright Fellowship Winners

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2022-2023 Fulbright Fellowship! The purpose of the Fulbright program is to increase mutual understanding between people of the United States and other countries through the exchange of persons, knowledge, and skills. Approximately 1,900 grants are available to over 140 countries.

Qurat-ul-ain Gulamhussein

Qurat-ul-ain Gulamhussein: Jordan

Working closely with local communities and faculty members at the University of Jordan and Yarmouk University, Qurat-ul-ain will examine how Muslim women in Jordan conceptualize and engage with culturally sensitive mental health services. By challenging Eurocentric treatment models that are systemically privileged within healthcare settings, she seeks to center how women demonstrate agency and resilience while navigating various stressors. Building on her training as a mental health practitioner in the US and her previous studies in Jordan and the larger Middle East and North Africa region, Qurat-ul-ain hopes to expand the borders of her ongoing work and contribute to a holistic understanding of culturally sensitive mental health services.

Qurat-ul-ain is a PhD candidate in Counseling Psychology, where her ongoing research focuses on the mental health of Muslim families and communities in the US. Qurat-ul-ain has a BA in Psychology with minors in Middle Eastern Studies and English at Stony Brook University, New York.

Benjamin Jorgenson

Benjamin Jorgenson: Denmark

Benjamin is a candidate for a Master of Public Health degree in epidemiology. He will be participating in study/research at the University of Copenhagen. He will take courses in microbiology and public health, and participate in a project studying the urban microbiome - the community of microbes and viruses that live in an urban environment - of the Copenhagen Metro. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the important relationship between the microbes that live on and around humans and population health, as well as the role that public transportation plays in the spread of diseases.

Benjamin hopes that this study/research will lead to a better understanding of the microbes around us, which can be used to improve public health practices.

Vanessa Voller

Vanessa Voller: Bolivia

Vanessa Voller, OLPD doctoral candidate in Comparative and International Development Education, has been awarded the Fulbright for the 2022-2023 academic year. She will travel to Bolivia and Costa Rica to assist on an interdisciplinary and mixed-methods project analyzing the effectiveness of adolescent healthcare services and comprehensive sexuality education. In particular, she will be documenting and analyzing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the provision of these education services and the unintended consequences of the pandemic on adolescent health outcomes.

This work will build upon Voller’s undergraduate and Master’s thesis projects and is the culmination of a 10+ year relationship with her host institutions. Vanessa received a B.A. in Sociology, a Master's degree in International Development Practice from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and hopes to begin medical school at the University of Minnesota upon her return next Fall. 

Carlie Cervantes De Blois

Carlie Cervantes de Blois: Indonesia

Carlie R. Cervantes de Blois is a PhD candidate in the Department of History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. Her graduate research is a history of water and development in the Pacific region. In 2022-23, she will return to Java, Indonesia to conduct research on the development of dams that have been critical irrigation sites for regional wet-rice production and achieving nation-building goals.

Through the Fulbright open research award, Carlie will collaborate with engineers in the field as well as consult archives and locals to better understand the intertwined history of American and Japanese technical development plans and Indonesia's ecological conditions and agricultural goals in the 20th century.

John Dieck

John Dieck: Morocco, France, and Spain

John, a PhD Candidate in the History graduate program, will be on a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship in the 2022-23 academic year.
 
John will travel across Morocco, Spain, and France studying evidence of the cannabis and tobacco trades within colonial Morocco. His research, directed by Professors Patricia Lorcin and Daniel Schroeter, demonstrates that colonial officials established a monopoly over tobacco and cannabis to help fund the colonial government. Trafficking of tobacco and cannabis around Morocco was perceived as a threat to protectorate stability, as were attempts by the League of Nations and, later, the United Nations to limit the circulation of cannabis. The Fulbright award will allow Dieck to further his language studies and divide his time between archives in the three countries. Dieck will work with faculty at the University of Moulay Ismail, University of Nantes, and the Institución Milá y Fontanals.

Julian Robels

Julian Robles: Mexico

Julian Robles will be based in Mexico City, where he will research the textile industry in Mexico between 1950 and 1975. This work will form the foundation of a novel that explores industrial labor, rural-to-urban migration, environmental degradation, and state-sanctioned violence.
 
Julian holds a B.A. in biology from Columbia University and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.