Twelve University of Michigan undergraduates, graduate students or graduates have been awarded prestigious national and international scholarships that will allow them to continue their studies in coming years.
These scholarships are in addition to U-M recipients of Rhodes, Marshall and Schwarzman scholarships, the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans and Fulbright fellowships announced earlier.
U-M applicants for these awards are recruited and prepared for national competitions by two primary offices: the International Institute’s Fellowships and Grants Advisors and the Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships.
The latest scholarships and their recipients are:
The Astronaut Scholarship
Anna Argento
Named in honor of the Mercury 7 astronauts, the Astronaut Scholarship provides $10,000 to a sophomore or junior who plans to pursue a Ph.D. and research career in any science, technology, engineering or math field. Anna Argento is a rising senior in honors biophysics major who studies cancer biology in the Castro-Lowenstein lab.
Beinecke Scholarship
Emily Russell
The Beinecke Scholarship provides $34,000 to support the graduate studies of a junior who plans to pursue a research career in the humanities or social sciences. Russell is a rising senior in honors political science and environment whose research focuses on human rights and non-violence.
Boren Fellowship for International Study
Linnea Carver and Moniek van Rheenen
Boren Fellowships provide a unique funding opportunity for U.S. students to study world regions critical to U.S. interests. Fellows agree to work in the federal government for at least one year.
Carver is a rising master’s student with the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and the School of Environment and Sustainability. She will be performing political economy research in Senegal.
Moniek, who is pursuing her Ph.D. in anthropology, will be a visiting scholar at the Andalas University in Padang, Indonesia, and the Center for the Study of Islam and Society at Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Jakarta. She’ll study Bahasa Minangkabau, a local Indonesian language spoken primarily in West Sumatra and in the Minangkabau diaspora across the country.
Josh Greenberg
Jo Osborn
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowships
Katie Browne, Josh Greenberg and Jo Osborn
DDRA fellowships are open to certain Ph.D. students and cover travel, living costs, and research-related expenses for six to 12 months, with the goal of deepening knowledge of areas in the world not generally included in U.S. curricula.
Browne of the School for Environment and Sustainability specializes in climate adaptation and climate change policy. She will spend 10 months in Madagascar exploring how climate adaptation is understood and implemented in different political systems and cultures.
Greenberg of the Department of Economics will spend one year in Uganda carrying out a pilot study of an intervention that fosters increased citizen participation through quarterly reporting meetings with local politicians to discuss health service quality.
Osborn of the Department of Anthropology will spend seven months is Chincha, Peru, studying the phenomenon of “specialized economies” in pre-Hispanic Peru, in which individual communities were dedicated to certain types of economic activities, like fishing or agriculture.
Gates Cambridge Scholarship
Anna Forringer-Beal
The Gates Cambridge Scholarship provides full funding plus a generous living and travel stipend for any graduate program at the University of Cambridge. Forringer-Beal, who received her bachelor’s degree in honors anthropology and women’s studies in 2016, is U-M’s first two-time winner of the scholarship.
She won a Gates-Cambridge in 2017 to support a Master of Philosophy in gender studies. She will return to complete her Ph.D. in that department focusing on policies combating human trafficking.
Luce Scholarship Program
Sophie Barterian
The Luce Scholars Program provides stipends, language training and individualized professional placement in Asia each year for 15 to 18 scholars who have limited prior exposure to Asia. Barterian, who received a Bachelor of Science degree this year in interdisciplinary physics with complex systems, plans to explore the field of social physics — essentially using physics to better understand social and cultural processes.
Udall Scholarship
Kristen Hayden
The Udall Scholarship provides $7,000 and an elite mentoring network for sophomores and juniors who plan to pursue careers related to sustainability and the environment, or for Native American students who will pursue careers in tribal policy or healthcare. Kristen is a rising senior in Honor Earth and Environmental Sciences a Graham Sustainability Scholar, and a peer mentor for the Sustainable Living Experience learning community.
Anna Argento
Noah Luntzlara
Zhiquan Sun
Goldwater Scholarships and STEM Research Career Award
Jenna Manske, Anna Argento and Noah Luntzlara
Zhiquan Sun
The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier award for sophomores and juniors who plan to pursue research careers in STEM. Manske is in honors chemistry, Argento is in honors biophysics, and Luntzlara is in honors mathematics.
Luntzlara’s scholarship extends the math department’s streak of at least one Goldwater Scholar every year since 2006. He also is the first U-M sophomore to win the award since 2014.
Since Goldwater Scholarships are limited to United States citizens, U-M this year created a new STEM Research Career Award open to all U-M sophomores and juniors regardless of nationality. The inaugural recipient was Zhiquan Sun (honors physics).
Scholarship recipients announced earlier this year were: Madj Abdulghani, Rhodes Scholar; Amanda Burcroff and Noah McNeal, Marshall Scholars; Cherline Bazile, Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans; and Eduardo Batista, Schwarzman Scholarship.
Also earlier this year, it was announced that U-M was the top-ranked public institution for Fulbright fellowships for the 14th year in a row, and the university ranked fourth nationally for NSF Graduate Research Fellowships.
The International Institute administers the Fulbright U.S. Student and U.S. Scholar Programs, Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, Luce Scholars Program, Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, and the Boren Fellowship. It also administers the International Institute Student Fellowships.
The Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships administers U-M’s nomination process for many scholarships that require official university endorsement, such as the Rhodes, Marshall, and Truman scholarships, as well as equally prestigious scholarships that do not require university endorsement, such as the Gates Cambridge, Knight-Hennessy and Schwarzman scholarships.
