April 28, 2008
College ties record for Fulbright awards
And they’re off. New Fulbright scholars from left: Ashley Van Vechten, Emily Lyman, Christine Kenison, Rebekah Porter, and Benjamin Schmitt.
sdickman@rochester.edu
Five graduating seniors and a recent alumnus of the
College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering will receive prestigious
Fulbright Scholarships for 2008-09 to study and conduct research abroad.
Equaling the record number of winners chosen from the College last year,
the new scholars will pursue a broad range of projects, from studying
autism in Mexico to conducting physics research in Germany and teaching
English in Taiwan.
The newest Fulbright Scholars are Christine Kenison
’08, of Londonderry, N.H., to Poland; Emily Lyman ’08, of
Needham, Mass., to Mexico; Rebekah Porter ’08, of Pittstown, N.J., to
Taiwan; Benjamin Schmitt ’08, of Greece, N.Y., to Germany; Brett D.
Stark ’07, of North Bethesda, Md., to Taiwan; and Ashley Van Vechten
’08, of Brighton, N.Y., to Germany.
In addition, two current seniors have been designated
as Fulbright alternates to their respective countries of application: Sarah
Burnham ’08, of Toledo, Ohio, alternate to China; and Joseph
Stadolnik ’08, of Medway, Mass., alternate to South Korea.
Four of the Fulbright winners—Kenison, Porter,
Schmitt, and Van Vechten—arrived on campus as full-tuition
Renaissance Scholars, who are selected from the top 1 percent of
undergraduate applicants to the College each year.
Kenison, who will graduate in May with a bachelor of
arts degree in German and French and with a certificate in Polish and
Central European studies, will spend her Fulbright year studying Polish
literature of the 1950s at Jagiellonian University in Krakow,
Poland. She has received numerous academic honors since her arrival at
the College, including election to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior and prizes in
both German and French from the Department of Modern Languages and
Cultures.
Graduating senior Lyman is earning a bachelor of arts
degree in psychology and Spanish with a minor in American Sign Language.
Her Fulbright plan is to conduct research on early intervention for autism
with Professor Carlos Marcin, a noted Mexico City scholar of clinical
psychology and developmental disorders. Previously, she studied abroad in
Santiago, Chili, and lived with a Chilean family in an immersion program.
Porter, who will receive a bachelor of arts degree in
linguistics with minors in Chinese and music, will spend her Fulbright year
in Taiwan as an English teaching assistant in an elementary or junior high
school while pursuing fluency in Chinese. She has received the Book Award
in Chinese from the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures and studied
abroad in Beijing during her junior year. While in China, she
volunteered on weekends to teach English in a local community of migrant
workers.
Schmitt, who is a double degree senior with a bachelor
of science degree in physics and astronomy, and a bachelor of arts degree
in mathematics and German, will spend his Fulbright year in Germany
conducting physics research at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics
in Heidelberg, and pursuing a master’s degree in astronomy and
astrophysics at Heidelberg University. He has previously conducted
research at the University’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, Cornell
University’s Laboratory for Elementary Particle Physics, and the Max
Planck Institute. Schmitt has coauthored several scientific papers and
intends to pursue a doctoral degree in physics and a research career in a
government or academic laboratory setting.
Stark received a bachelor of arts degree in 2007
with a major in political science, an individualized major in cultural
identities, and a minor in English literature. For his Fulbright year in
Taiwan, he will be an English teaching assistant while learning Mandarin
Chinese and studying the formation of Taiwanese national identity. Since
graduation, he has worked as a researcher at the World Bank and as a
paralegal at the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in
Washington, D.C..
Van Vechten, who is earning a bachelor of arts degree
in German and history, will spend her Fulbright year in Germany as an
English teaching assistant in a secondary school while continuing her study
of German language and history. She has been a leading member of the
women’s varsity soccer team since her freshman year, earning such
honors and recognitions as the 2008 Garnish Scholar Athlete Award, All-UAA
First Team, NY State Defensive Player of the Year in 2006 and 2007, and
NSCAA/ Adidas Scholar All-American in 2006 and 2007. She is the only
women’s soccer player in the 32-year history of the sport at
Rochester to be recognized for three consecutive seasons.
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