Weinberg College
of Arts & Sciences

Students and Alumni Win Fulbrights

More than a dozen will conduct research around the globe with the support of the prestigious grant

A number of Weinberg College’s alumni and graduate students are well on their way to leading lives of significance as they venture abroad to research or teach as 2013-2014 Fulbright grant recipients.

The Fulbright program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, provides grants for research projects or English teaching assistantships internationally based on an applicant’s merit and potential for leadership.

On Oct. 28, 2013, The Chronicle of Higher Education named Northwestern University a “Top Producing” university for students receiving Fulbright grants. Northwestern ranked sixth among universities in the doctoral/research university category.

The diversity of projects for Weinberg’s 2013-2014 Fulbright scholars reflect the breadth of the Weinberg curriculum, ranging from economic analysis to the study of cultural narratives. Fulbright scholars engage with new communities while conducting culturally and politically significant research or while teaching.

Anamika Dwivedi, a class of 2010 graduate teaching in India, shared her mission: “I hope my students will use English as a way to both broaden their understanding of different cultures and share their own perspectives with others around the world.”

Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, 2013-2014 Fulbright Fellows

Molly Barstow

A 2013 graduate in Middle Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Barstow is conducting research while based in Morocco. She is investigating how refugees integrate into Moroccan society.

Jinsoo Chung

Class of 2013 economics graduate Chung will be conducting research in South Korea.

Payson Croy

Croy, a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department and the recipient of a master’s degree in history from Northwestern in 2010, is based in Prague. Croy investigates the experiences of German-identified individuals who lived in Czechoslovakia from 1946, when the country’s mass expulsions of Germans ended, until 2004, when the country, which became the Czech Republic in 1993, joined the European Union. Croy will be doing archival research and conducting interviews in Prague and Western Bohemia studying impacted assimilation patterns among Germans in Bohemia and Moravia.

Jack Davis

Davis, 2013 graduate in sociology, will be composing a documentary on social support systems for refugees in Mozambique’s post-civil war society. By interviewing government officials, camp workers and refugees, Davis will focus on how refugees use informal social networks and evade the refugee assistance infrastructure created by the international community.

Anamika Dwivedi

Dwivedi, who graduated as a biological sciences major and philosophy minor in 2010, teaches English at Lady Irwin Senior Secondary School in New Delhi, India as a Fulbright scholar.

Dwivedi is tentatively researching the role of after-school tuition in the academic achievement of school-age children in New Delhi. Additionally, Dwivedi volunteers at two after-school learning centers serving students from low-income communities, working to develop an English conversation curriculum.

Chelsea Glenn

Class of 2013 economics and international studies graduate Glenn is using her Fulbright grant to examine whether people are better off when they join the formal credit market. Glenn also researches which variables determine the likelihood that an individual will be a successful credit user.

In Mexico City, Mexico, Glenn will specifically analyze the effect on household welfare of increased access to consumer credit and savings through the introduction of companies such as Banco Walmart and Banco Azteca.

Vasiliki Mitrakos

Mitrakos, a 2013 graduate, will study the politicization of universities in Athens, Greece. At Northwestern, Mitrakos majored in political science and also pursued adjunct majors in international studies and legal studies.

Mitrakos will combine an ethnographic study of student groups and discourse analysis of interviews with key groups at the university level in Greece, such as students, alumni, faculty and representatives from the Ministry of Education.

Patrick Pijls

Pijls, who graduated in 2011, will be teaching English in Argentina.

Christine Prorok

Prorok ’13 works at two secondary schools in Homburg, Germany as an English teaching assistant. For classes ranging from 6th to 12th grade, Prorok helps teachers with their English lessons, often focusing on aspects of American culture. At Weinberg, Prorok double-majored in German and legal studies and minored in political science.

Harika Rayala

A 2013 graduate in anthropology, Rayala is researching “Discourse and Performance of Distress: A Study of Women’s Mental Health in Tribal India” in Andhra Pradesh, India. Continuing her interest in storytelling and public health, Rayala will analyze women’s access to mental health treatments and their narratives of illness in the Banjara community. To understand the role of community-rooted methods of healing in the health services, Rayala will study how women deal with suffering through folktale performance and other forms of communication.

Ian Rinehart

Based in Hamburg, Germany, Rinehart researches the decentralization of energy production in Germany and the rise of alternative models of energy ownership. Rinehart also explores the role of trust in the German energy sector, focusing on citizens’ attitudes toward utility companies, regulators, NGOs and other stakeholders. Rinehart’s research comes at a time when voters in Hamburg elected to purchase their energy grid back from private companies. The Class of 2011 graduate double-majored in German and international studies.

Michael Scheufele

Scheufele will be teaching English at Ummul Qura Senior School in Malindi, Kenya. Malindi is located in Kilifi County, near the Indian Ocean coast. The 2013 graduate majored in English at Northwestern.

Ari Shaw

Shaw, a Ph.D. candidate in political science, is conducting dissertation fieldwork primarily in Bogota, Colombia, examining the efficacy of international human rights law in improving local practices. With the issues of LGBT rights, women’s reproductive health rights and indigenous land rights, Shaw is studying rights-based mobilization to ask when and how activists deploy international human rights law to accomplish domestic policy goals. Shaw’s dissertation is tentatively titled “Claiming International Rights: Human Rights Mobilization and Domestic Change.”

Mia Warren

Warren is studying the Japanese Peruvian population in Lima, Peru with her Fulbright grant, specifically those who identify as both Japanese and Peruvian. Warren, who graduated in 2012 with a creative writing major and Spanish minor, is conducting interviews with mostly nikkei, a Japanese word referring to descendants of Japanese immigrants abroad.

With the material she gathers, Warren will create a radio documentary and essays in addition to interning with Watshoi TV, which covers events in the nikkei community.