Three Bowdoin students are celebrating the recent announcement of several fellowship awards. The Fulbright Program has awarded two Bowdoin seniors, Mollie Friedlander and Megan Massa, its national fellowship, while a junior, Margaret Lindeman, received a Udall Scholarship and an honorable mention from the Goldwater Scholarship Program.
Friedlander won a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) in Madrid, Spain.
The ETA will give her the opportunity to teach subjects ranging from biology to history at a secondary school.
She will also participate in a community-based side project that will focus on exploring the health care system in Madrid.
“Spain is ranked seventh in the world for health care,” she said, “so I’m trying to see how their universal health care system functions at such an outstanding level, and my proposal is how can I take that back to the States.”
The fellowship has awarded Friedlander a grant in the amount of €13,905 (roughly $19,270) to cover expenses while in Spain.
Friedlander will leave September 15 and will return in June 2015.
Senior Megan Massa was awarded a study/research opportunity through Fulbright. Massa will be travelling to Bochum, Germany to work in a Multiple Sclerosis lab.
While there, she will study the mechanisms by which cells induce their own death, and how those mechanisms change in the presence of sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone.
She will also be looking into the culture of young people in Bochum, specifically their thoughts on the Holocaust.
“I want to talk to the kids there in our generation and talk to them about, in tactful ways, how they’re dealing with it, seeing as it’s a more recent memory,” she said.
Massa will be leaving in late July to participate in an intensive German language program before her research program begins in September. She will return in July 2015.
Junior Margaret Lindeman won a Udall Scholarship for the upcoming year.
The Udall Scholarship is awarded to sophomores and juniors who have demonstrated strong commitments to environmental careers. Juniors Matt Goodrich, Bridgett McCoy and Courtney Payne received honorable mentions for this award.
Lindeman will receive a $5,000 scholarship and all-paid attendence at a conference of winners in August.
The Goldwater Scholarship Program awarded Lindeman an honorable mention. Students can apply for it their sophomore and junior years.
“It is designed to recognize the people who are most likely to be at the forefront in the STEM, the science, technology, engineering and math fields, in the next generation—people who are committed to research,” said Director of Student Fellowships Cindy Stocks.
Lindeman proposed a long-term monitoring system for glaciers in Greenland.
“The question that I’m interested in overall is about the interaction between the ocean and the ice that is on land,” she said.
Although Lindeman did not win a Goldwater Scholarship, she was able to connect with one of the scientists whose research she used when writing her proposal. This summer, she will be going to Greenland to work with him.
Current Bowdoin alumni abroad on Fulbright programs include six members of the class of 2013: Kacey Berry, Daniel Ertis, RaiNesha Miller, Emma Cutler, Uchechi Esonu and Adam Ragone. Fulbright Fellowships are released based on the region in which applicants hope to work, and several more Bowdoin students could receive Fulbright awards in the coming weeks.