The International Institute (II) has awarded nearly $170,000 to 47 U-M students through its Individual Fellowship program. Students will travel abroad during the summer months to conduct research or participate in an internship.
“Many students arrive at U-M with a keen interest in international affairs and a desire to learn about other parts of the world,” says Ken Kollman, International Institute director. “The II is committed to providing them with the opportunity to augment their education through an international experience.”
Students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds apply for the program each year, representing the humanities, social and natural sciences, medicine, law, architecture and business. This year’s projects range in scope from examining obesity in teenagers in Chile to analyzing political participation in China.
The highly competitive, merit-based program is open to undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a degree program at U-M. More than 200 students applied for the prestigious competition, which awards individual fellowships of up to $5,000.
Kate Saetang, a master’s student in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, will be working for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Geneva, Switzerland. IOM is an intergovernmental and multilateral agency that provides services and policy advice to governments and migrants.
“I applied to the II Individual Fellowship to acquire funding for an international internship,” Saetang says. “International jobs and internships are difficult to come by and even more difficult to finance. However, international experience is increasingly important in today’s world. The II Individual Fellowship made the possibility of working abroad much more feasible.”
Beginning in mid-June, Saetong and a handful of other fellowship recipients will begin writing about their research and internship experiences on the II’s blog — www.iimichigan.wordpress.com.
The year’s fellowship grantees, degrees and areas of study they are pursuing, and their research projects and internships include:
Erika Almenara, Ph.D. (romance languages and literatures), Peru, Chile and Argentina — $2,700; “The Transfer of Trauma from Pregnant Women to Their Daughters”
Elizabeth Barrios, Ph.D. (romance languages and literatures), Venezuela — $4,500; “Experiencing the Past Today: Re-enactments and Fictionalizations of History”
Marcela Benitez, Ph.D. (anthropology and psychology), Ethiopia — $1,400; “Vocal Displays as Signals of Male Quality in Wild Primates”
Cindy Bick, M.Sc. (ecology and evolutionary biology), England — $4,000; “Differential Survival Among Tahitian Tree Snails During A Mass Extinction Event”
Mary Birkett, B.A. (anthropology), Japan — $2,000; “‘Cute’ Aesthetics: Reconstructing Japanese Public Space With Kawaii Mascots”
Alexander Brown, B.A. (German and French), Germany — $3,500; “Musikfestspiele Saar – Saarbrücken”
Emily Carroll, B.B.A. (business), Germany — $1,500; business internship
Adriana Chira, Ph.D. (anthropology and history), Cuba — $3,500; “Moving Rights: Migration and Rights Consciousness in the 19th c. Caribbean”
Zachary Cofran, Ph.D. (anthropology), Georgia — $2,400; paleontological research and education in Georgia
Danya Ayehlet Cooper, M.L.A. (landscape architecture), Turkey — $5,000; landscape architecture internship in Istanbul
Christopher Crachiola, B.A. (public policy), Japan — $4,000; internship with Koz Moz International
Alexander Farivar, M.P.P. (public policy), The Netherlands — $5,000; “Democratic Effects of Internet Diffusion”
Alyssa Francini, B.A. (sociology), Philippines — $3,750; internship in schools for the deaf
George Göddard, B.B.A. (business), Germany — $4,000; business internship
Catherine Guido, M.U.P. (urban and regional planning), Germany — $5,000; urban planning and design Internship
John Guittar, Ph.D. (ecology and evolutionary biology), Ecuador — $4,000; “A New Approach to Understanding Tropical Forest Response to Climate Change”
James Hammond, B.S. (history), Uganda — $3,000; “Mulago Hospital: The Social History of Biomedicine in Uganda”
Alysa Handelsman, Ph.D. (anthropology), Ecuador — $4,500; “Children in Motion —Institutions and the Street in Guayaquil”
Russell Harty, B.S. (mathematics), South Africa — $2,500; “Improving HIV Patient Treatment with the SOZO System”
Nicholas Ho, M.Arch. (architecture), China — $4,500; “Disappearing and Emerging Urbanism in Beijing’s Urban and Rural Villages”
Vanessa Hoyos, M.S. (nursing), Chile — $3,500; “Biological and Psychosocial Determinants of Obesity in Adolescents”
Conrad Kickert, Ph.D. (architecture), The Netherlands — $5,000; “Active Spaces — Attractive Spaces (The Hague Research)”
Dana Kornberg, Ph.D. (sociology), India — $3,500; “Defining the Sanitary City: Contests over Solid Waste in Delhi, India”
Michelle Lam, M.U.P. (urban and regional planning), Germany — $3,000; “Does Dessau Provide a New Model & Prototype for Planning Shrinking Cities?”
Elyse Leonard, B.A. (political science), Norway — $900; data analyst and researcher at Peace Research Institute of Oslo
Jing Lu, M.P.H. (epidemiology), Ghana — $1,500; “Patterns of Social Resources and Malaria Risk in Ghanaian Children”
Aisulu Masylkanova, J.D. (law), Italy — $3,000; legal internship with U.N. World Food Programme
Liana May, M.S. (conservation ecology), Tanzania — $1,700; “Assessment of Tree Recruitment and Diversity under Different Land Uses”
Sara Neill, M.D. (medicine), Ghana — $5,000; “Barriers of Access to Safe Second Trimester Abortion Services in Ghana”
Christoph Nolte, Ph.D. (resource policy and behavior), Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil — $4,500; “Evaluating Carbon, Biodiversity, and Livelihood Impacts of Biodiversity Projects”
David O’Connor, M.S. (School of Natural Resources and Environment), Kenya — $5,000; “Effect of Lions & Lion-human Conflict on Pathogen Prevalence”
Matthew Parelman, J.D. and M.A. (law and Russian & East European studies), Russia — $4,500; legal internship with American Bar Association in Moscow
Courtney Ritter, Ph.D. (screen arts and cultures), Italy — $4,500; “Italy’s New Bell Towers: Television Antennas and Postwar Reconstruction”
Ashley Rockenbach, Ph.D. (history), Uganda — $3,500; “Towards a Social History of Rwandan Refugees in a Ugandan Borderland”
Devon Rupley, M.D. (medicine), Ghana — $5,000; “Barriers of Access to Safe Second Trimester Abortion Services in Ghana”
Kamolchanok (Kate) Saetang, M.P.P. (public policy), Switzerland — $1,800; internship with the International Organization for Migration
Guillermo Sanhueza, Ph.D. (social work and sociology), Chile — $3,500; “Factors Behind Prisoners’ Rehabilitation: Exploring the Case of Chile”
Joshua Shapero, Ph.D. (anthropology), Peru — $4,500; “Social Space and Spatial Language among Ancash Quechua Speakers”
Jasleen Singh, M.S.W. (social work), India — $4,000; “Study of Female Feticide in Punjab and Gender Normative Behavior”
Galina Stefadu, B.A. (history of art), France — $4,000; “Spectacle and the Appropriation of Montmartrois Culture at the Moulin Rouge”
Rodrigo Toromoreno, Ph.D. (romance languages and literatures), Ecuador — $3,000; “Picturing the Amazon: Landscape Literature and the Colonial Imagination”
Gabriel VanLoozen, B.A. (political science and history), Germany — $3,000; internship with the Center for Distance Studies
Ethan Wampler, B.S. (mechanical engineering), Germany — $4,000; engineering internship
Maria Wathen, Ph.D. (social work and sociology), Russia — $4,500; “Social Capital Building through Civil Society Organizations: Russia”
Emily White, M.F.A. (art and design), The Netherlands and Indonesia — $2,000; “Art Old and New: The Netherlands and Indonesia”
Colin Yee, B.S. (anthropology, and molecular, cellular and developmental biology), Liberia — $2,400; “Health Through Accompaniment in Rural Liberia”
Qingjie Zeng, Ph.D. (political science), China — $3,500; “Explaining Political Participation in China.”
