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| Greetings From the Scholars & Fellows Programs
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We hope you all have enjoyed an excellent summer and a good start to the fall!
While many fellowship activities will continue to be virtual during the 2021-22 academic year, we are delighted that Hopkins has been able to return to in-person learning this semester, with more activities in person as well. We are excited to be back on campus for office hours and some other gatherings. Moving forward, we expect to seize opportunities for in-person meetings and sessions where we can, while continuing to take advantage of the flexibility for our advisees of virtual one-on-one meetings and programs.
In our last newsletter, we shared some structural and staffing changes at NFP: our becoming part of the new Scholars and Fellows Programs (SFP) within the Center for Student Success, the arrival of our inaugural director of SFP, Dr. Stephon Hamell, and the departure of NFP’s Associate Director, Dr. Jeannette Miller. We have more news to share. We are delighted to welcome Dr. Brent Fujioka as an Assistant Director in SFP. Dr. Fujioka will work on building strong foundations for the cohort-based Kessler Scholars and Baltimore Scholars programs, and extend fellowships advising with outreach to first-year students and those who identify as first-generation college and/or limited income students.
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Dr. Fujioka joins us after previously serving as the Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Scholars Programs at Colgate University, where he administered the Alumni Memorial Scholars and Benton Scholars Programs. He focused on expanding experiential learning opportunities, building venues for sharing undergraduate research, and supporting applicants for competitive national fellowships and scholarships. Dr. Fujioka earned his Ph.D. in American Studies from Brown University in 2015, and holds MAs from Brown and Washington State University and a BA from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
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We are also excited to share that Jake Budenz, who has provided invaluable support to fellowship applicants since joining us as NFP's Writing Tutor in 2018, has accepted a new role in the Center for Student Success, where he will serve multiple programs as the CSS Writing Fellow. Jake will work with both students and staff as he develops programming and guidance to enable students to sharpen their self-expression. Thankfully, Jake’s new role includes continuing his work with fellowship applicants at NFP. Congratulations, Jake!
We are grateful to be growing in our staffing and scope. To learn more about our current staff, please visit the CCS Meet the Staff page.
Now that you’ve heard about our updates, we want to hear from you! Please read on to learn about ways to share your updates, engage with fellow NFP alums, and support current and future applicants to fellowships you applied to.
Wishing you all the best,
Dr. Kathleen M. Barry
Assistant Director for Fellowships, Scholars & Fellows Programs
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NFP Alumni Engagement We encourage all of our alumns to consider ways to "pay it forward" and stay connected to each other and to us:
- Volunteer to become an NFP mentor for a fellowship you've been awarded! We know that peer mentoring is uniquely valuable. But we also know that you are all busy, so we can find ways for you to connect with applicants that fit your availability. Contact Dr. Barry at kbarry18@jhu.edu for details.
- Inspiration can go a long way as well! Please email photos of yourself during your fellowship year to nfp@jhu.edu for us to include on our website and newsletter. We're always looking for new images that highlight the great things you're doing and the benefits of a fellowship experience.
- Join us for NFP-hosted events to network with other alumni!
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Spotlight on Upcoming Awards In case you are interested in mentoring applicants, or if you want to apply yourself – many awards are open to recent graduates.* Here are some fellowships with fall deadlines:
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program
- Hertz Fellowship
- P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans
- DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst/German Academic Exchange Service)
- SSRC International Dissertation Research Fellowship
- Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship
*As a matter of professional courtesy among fellowships advisors, JHU alumni enrolled at another institution with a fellowships advising office should reach out to that office first for application support.
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Recent Winners and Finalists Reaching the semi-final or final round of a highly competitive award selection process is quite an accomplishment. And winning one, of course, is cause for great celebration. Here, in roughly chronological order, is the good news about those who won awards or were designated finalists this spring – our congratulations to them all!
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Luce Scholarship Winner Nihaal Raman (2021 / Environmental Science and Public Health Studies)
Nihaal, our fourth student to be named a Luce Scholar in five years, is an aspiring public health pediatrician whose career will merge his commitments to environmental sustainability, equity, and childhood health. You can read more about Nihaal and his plans in the JHU Hub.
Gaither Junior Fellows Program Finalist Nina Tophoff (2021 / International Studies and Economics)
Nina, who plans to join the Foreign Service, has gained in-depth exposure to international relations through research on topics including the economics of remittance policies, labor trafficking in mining regions of the Caribbean, nuclear studies, and contemporary German foreign policy and trade.
PD Soros Fellowship for New Americans Winner Alaleh Azhir (2019 / Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, and Applied Statistics & Mathematics)
Alaleh is a medical student in the Harvard-MIT HST program after earning an MSc in Statistical Science at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She has developed many novel tools for visualization and analysis of genomics data and is now focusing on the effects of X and Y sex chromosomes on presentation and treatment of diseases.You can read more about Alaleh and the Soros fellowship in the JHU Hub.
PD Soros Fellowship for New Americans Finalist Dimitrios Sidiropoulos (PhD Candidate / Cellular & Molecular Medicine)
Dimitri is pursuing training as both a computational scientist and experimental immunologist, focusing on developing immunotherapies to tackle immunosuppressive tumors that are aggressive and resistant to treatments, such as breast and pancreatic cancer.
Truman Scholarship Finalist Ryann Schutt (2022 / Sociology and International Studies)
Ryann, who piloted a public services program for unemployed Delawareans and managed campaign communications for Baltimore mayoral candidate Thiru Vignarajah, hopes to bring important change to education policy by advocating for greater use of conflict resolution and less reliance on criminal justice-centered approaches to school discipline.
Goldwater Scholarship Winners Bruce Enzmann (2022 / Materials Science and Engineering)
Bruce focuses on biomaterials design to enhance tissue regeneration. Working in Dr. Hai-Quan Mao’s group in the Institute for NanoBio Technology, Bruce has led the development of a nerve-wrapping device that prevents the formation of painful neuromas and decreases inflammation after peripheral nerve damage.
Min Jae Kim (2022 / Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience)
Min Jae is committed to improving clinical tools for monitoring and treating Parkinson’s Disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. In Dr. Kelly Mills’s lab, he has been developing predictive models for Deep Brain Stimulation, to help clinicians achieve greater accuracy in setting voltage, location and frequency parameters.
Shiker Nair (2022 / Biomedical Engineering)
Shiker strives to design computational tools to aid early diagnosis and personalized treatment of debilitating heart and lung diseases. As part of the CIRCUIT program at the APL, he helped develop a computational pipeline for diagnosing patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) solely from tomography scans.
Aaditya Rau (2022 / Engineering Mechanics and Applied Mathematics & Statistics)
Aaditya aspires to facilitate greater reliance on alternative energy sources through advanced materials research. In Dr. Kevin Hemker’s lab, he is characterizing novel nickel-molybdenum-tungsten alloys, which are of interest for use in extreme conditions in industries such as energy exploration and generation, aviation, and automotive.
You can read more about the Goldwater Scholarship and this year’s four winners in the JHU Hub.
Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellowship Winner Taz Shah (2019 / Public Health Studies)
Taz is dedicated to developing more effective anti-hunger and nutrition education policies and programs for low-resource communities. She has taught nutrition classes to underserved communities and delivered support services to people experiencing homelessness in Baltimore, and developed policy to address homelessness in Sacramento, California. You can read more about Taz and the Emerson fellowship in the JHU Hub.
Astronaut Scholarship Winner Chelsey Chen (2022 / Biophysics and Spanish)
Chelsey has been working since her first year in Dr. Gregg Semenza’s lab on the role of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) and HIF target genes in breast cancer metastasis, relapse, and resistance to treatment.
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Fulbright – What a Year! This spring required even more patience than usual of Fulbright applicants. Host countries attempted to accommodate 2020-21 grantees, the majority of whom were not able to start their grants on schedule last fall, while also offering a new round of grants for 2021-22 applicants. This application cycle also attracted a record number of applicants—more than 11,000. Alas, uncertainties and delayed notifications piled up. In the end, many countries scaled back on new awards (though the final numbers are not yet clear) in the most competitive cycle in recent history. Hopkins applicants nonetheless fared well, as they consistently do, with 15 applicants winning Fulbright ETA or Study/Research grants, and an additional eight designated as alternates, who will receive grants if and as funding becomes available. Congratulations to the winners and alternates, and kudos to all who applied in this historic application cycle.
Below we’ve listed the winners and alternates; for brief bios of all the winners, please see the JHU Hub’s recent feature on this spring’s Fulbright awardees.
Study/Research Awards for 2021-22 - Khaled Aboumerhi (PhD Candidate, Electrical & Computer Engineering) – Fulbright/Swiss Government Open Study/Research Award, Switzerland
- Marios Falaris (PhD Candidate, Anthropology) – Fulbright-Nehru Open Study/Research Award, India
- Alexandra Lombardo (MD Candidate, School of Medicine) – Master's Degree Program Award: National Taiwan University Award in Global Health, Taiwan
- Lea Marineau (PhD Candidate, School of Nursing) – Open Study/Research Award, South Africa
- Matthew Pellegrino (DMA Candidate, Composition, Peabody Institute) – Open Study/Research Award, South Korea
- Ronan Perry (MSE in Biomedical Engineering, 2020; Applied Math & Statistics, 2019) – Open Study/Research Award, Germany
- Lauren (Mickey) Sloat (Molecular and Cellular Biology, 2021) – Open Study/Research Award, Germany
- Salma Tayel (MPH candidate, Bloomberg School of Public Health) – Open Study/Research Award, Egypt
- Liam Wall (Economics, 2019) – Binational Internship Program, Mexico
English Teaching Assistant Awards for 2021-22 - Katherine Hu (Biomedical Engineering, 2021) – Spain
- Sarika Mullapudi (Molecular & Cellular Biology; Medicine, Science, & the Humanities, 2021) – Spain
- Kevin Sompel (Biomedical Engineering, 2021) – Poland
- Ivy Wang (International Studies & Economics, 2021) – South Korea
- Angela Xu (Molecular & Cellular Biology, 2021) – Taiwan
- Angel Zhao (History & International Studies, 2021) – Taiwan
We would also like to celebrate the following applicants who achieved Alternate status in the most competitive Fulbright grant cycle on record:
- Lesya Bazylewicz (English & Writing Seminars, 2018) – English Teaching Assistant Award, Slovak Republic
- Ella Damstra (Psychology, 2020) – Fulbright-CY Cergy Paris University Award, France
- Nomongo Dorjsuren (Biophysics, 2021) – English Teaching Assistant Award, Mongolia
- Talia Katz (PhD Candidate in Anthropology) – PhD Research Program, Israel
- Emily Lee (Public Health, 2019) – Open Study/Research Award, Malaysia
- Sydney Taylor (MEd in Education, 2021) – English Teaching Assistant Award, Saudi Arabia
- Serena Wang (Public Health, 2020) – Fulbright/University of Glasgow Award, United Kingdom
- Tanna Wise (MA in International Relations & International Economics, SAIS, 2020) – English Teaching Assistant Award, Malaysia
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Alumni Spotlight Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellows Ally Hardebeck and Olivia Chan discussed their work as part of an online briefing by Emerson Fellows on “The State of Hunger in America” on March 5, 2021 (see Ally’s presentation and Olivia’s presentation on YouTube). The briefing was attended by more than 100 policymakers, nonprofit and corporate leaders, Hunger Fellow alums, and others, who heard how community-based organizations are addressing the root causes of hunger and poverty amid an historic crisis of food insecurity. You can also learn more about Ally’s work in emergency food distribution in Oregon in her Congressional Hunger Center blog post from February.
Kiana Boroumand, who won a 2020-21 Fulbright study grant to earn a master’s in Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Bristol in the UK, published an article in January about the student rent strike at Bristol. In it, she considers how the strike reflects the financialization of student housing as universities have come to rely on private, third-party housing providers. You can read her work on the website of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project at Yale Law School.
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|  | NFP Alumni (left to right): Olivia Chan (Emerson '20);
Kiana Boroumand (Fulbright–UK Bristol, '19); Ally Hardebeck (Emerson, '20)
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NFP on Social Media We’re on Twitter! Please follow us at @jhfellowships, and we look forward to following you, too.
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