A recent graduate from the history department, an alumna working in higher education, and doctoral students in History of Art & Architecture and Anthropological Archaeology have received prestigious Fulbright Awards for Academic Year 2022-23, enabling them to travel to England, Germany, Israel, and Scotland to conduct research and attend graduate school; and two recent graduates in Cultural Anthropology and Religion and Sociology have been awarded prestigious Fulbright grants to teach English in Vietnam and South Korea.
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides young scholars and professionals the opportunity to participate in cultural exchange and immersion while pursuing an advanced degree, teaching English, or conducting research. This government program partners with more than 140 countries worldwide and awards grants to over 3,000 students, university faculty, and administrators each year.
Over the past 13 years, more than 90 Boston University students have engaged in research, graduate study, creative arts project, and teaching through the Fulbright program. For the 2022 Fulbright cycle, Boston University saw a record 66 applications from seniors, graduate students, and recent alumni. Of those applicants, 37 were named Fulbright Semi-Finalists by the U.S. National Screening Committee, and 15 were named Fulbright Grantees. An additional sevem students were named alternates, who Fulbright deemed well qualified for the honor and will be offered awards if more funding becomes available. Below are the recipients from the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Read more on BU Fellowships and Scholarships website.
2022 Arts & Sciences Fulbright Grantees
Kimber Chewning, GRS’17,’24, PhD History of Art & Architecture, Study/Research Award, Germany
Kimber Chewning is a Ph.D. Candidate in the History of Art & Architecture, where she focuses on photography and teaches History of Photography. She also serves as a graduate co-curricular program coordinator for the BU Center for the Humanities’ “The One and the Many” program, a grant-funded immersive humanities summer program for high school students. She received her MA from GRS in 2017, has worked for numerous Boston cultural and academic institutions, and has completed projects such as Public Art at BU, a photographic database of the University’s 20+ public art installations. Kimber will use her Fulbright award to conduct research in Berlin, Germany for her dissertation, titled: “Between Divergence and Emergence: The Photographic Subjects of Divided Berlin.”
Catherine Devlin, CAS’22, BA History, Study/Research Award, Scotland
A student in the Kilachand Honors College and a Trustee Scholar, Catherine Devlin has served as a student employee at the BU Center for the Humanities, president of the Phi Alpha Theta history honors society, and as a senior editor for the Boston Political Review. She has honed her academic research skills on and off campus, completing her honors thesis on the genre of female biography and working as the lead researcher and associate producer for the 2020 documentary Sky Blossom. Catherine will use her Fulbright award to study at the University of Glasgow in Scotland for a Master’s degree in Gender History.
Anna Stroinski, CAS’19, BA History & Philosophy, Study/Research Award, UK
A former department coordinator for Religion, and now for the Department of Politics at Princeton University, Anna Stroinski graduated summa cum laude from the College in 2019. At BU, she served as president of College Democrats and wrote a column for the Daily Free Press. She will attend Durham University in England on Fulbright for a Master’s in U.S. History, working with Dr. Jennifer Luff on a project examining the transnational, intellectual history of the strike and labor protest tactics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The project, which focuses on coal fields and miners in the United States and United Kingdom, grew out of Anna’s undergraduate thesis in history at BU.
Jade Isabella Lau, CAS’21, BA Cultural Anthropology and Religion, ETA Award, Vietnam
Jade Isabella Lau graduated from Boston University with a BA in Cultural Anthropology and Religion, honors and Magna Cum Laude. Jade values the Fulbright ETA Program in Vietnam as an opportunity to support English language learning, share the vibrancy and diversity of American culture, and learn from the people, languages, and cultures of Vietnam.
Evan McDuff, GRS’25, PhD in Anthropological Archaeology, Study/Research Award, Israel
Evan McDuff was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to pursue their research project titled, “Spices, Identity, and Acts of Culinary Resistance in the face of the Roman Empire” in collaboration with Dr. Ruth Shahack-Gross of the Laboratory for Sedimentary Archaeology at the University of Haifa in Israel. Evan holds a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Maine, Orono, a M.A. in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies from Brandeis University, and is currently working on their PhD in Anthropological Archaeology at Boston University. Evan’s current research focuses on the use of botanical remains from the archaeological record to illuminate culinary practices and the use of imported spices across varied social groups in the Roman Empire.
Althea Ruppo, GRS, PhD in History of Art & Architecture, Study/Research Award, Germany
Althea Ruoppo is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History of Art & Architecture. Her dissertation focuses on three artists, Isa Genzken (b. 1948), Reinhard Mucha (b. 1950), and Rosemarie Trockel (b. 1952), and traces their gradual development of a transnational German sculptural aesthetic over the last forty years. Althea is especially concerned with the artists’ juxtapositions of disparate everyday objects, industrial and commercial materials, cultural references, and titles from divergent national contexts. In elucidating the nexus of place in key examples of their assemblage works, her research addresses the implications for cross-border and cross-cultural approaches to artmaking. During her doctoral studies, Althea has served as a BU Summer Term instructor and as an intern for the Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture and the Princeton University Art Museum.
Kahjirah Taylor Harris, CAS’22, BA Sociology, ETA Award, South Korea
Kahjirah Taylor Harris is a first-generation college student who majored in sociology. She is also a Posse Scholar. During her undergraduate studies, she served as an English Language Teaching Fellow for Breakthrough Greater Boston, and an office assistant at The Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground. Kahjirah is passionate about and dedicated to diminishing educational disparities in the United States through educational policy reforms. As a first-gen college student, she grew up understanding the importance of not just education but how equity in education drastically shifts outcomes in life particularly for students of color. A Fulbright experience will provide her with the necessary tools and a new perspective on closing the achievement gap. She hopes to be able to reflect on how policies impact the reform of educational systems and to ultimately support and improve equality and equity in the U.S education curriculum and better Black and Brown student achievement.