Rachael Stovall of Kirkland is among the 15 University of Washington alumni and students who have been awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships, joining the more than 1,500 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2010-11 academic year through the Fulbright Student Program. This number of recipients sets an institutional record for the largest number of UW undergraduate Fulbright awardees.
Stovall taught children nutrition in a multicultural Seattle neighborhood through the organization Cultivating Youth, working with the elementary school children to grow, harvest, and discuss the benefits of vegetables. Stovall learned about foods in students’ homes, gaining an international perspective on nutrition.
She subsequently developed research and analytical skills, abstracting nutrition policies for Washington state public school districts. Stovall also contributed to evaluations of strong and weak policies on the “Healthy Schools, Successful Students” Web site for Washington state school management, parents and the community.
In graduate-level epidemiology classes, she learned research methods for calculating risks of diseases and identifying confounding factors that muddle research validity. For her honors senior thesis, Stovall investigated students’ stipends and eating behaviors in a Seattle public school. Stovall plans to earn an MD and a master’s in Public Health to continue to help people improve their health, and conduct epidemiologic research focusing on child health. She hopes to further her knowledge of public health with her Fulbright research in Jordan.
Other recipients for the scholarship include: Masha Burina, Glorya Cho, Maria Hoisington, Joji Kohjima, Sam Lim, Sarah Munger, Meleah Paull, Caitlin Pratt, Nathan Snyder and Christina Ygona.
Two current UW graduate students and two recent doctoral graduates also were selected this year. They include Suzanne Simburg, graduate student in Business and Public Administration; Rachel Severson, graduate with a doctoral degree in Psychology; Cameron McGregor, graduate student in Education; and Patrick Aubin, graduate with doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The program operates in over 155 countries worldwide.
For more information, visit: http://fulbright.state.gov.
