Many Dartmouth juniors and seniors have been awarded national and College scholarships this year and will be using their awards to do research on everything from thyroid disorder and cancer research to anthropological field work in Iran.
Fulbright Grants
Holden Spaht '96 and Alexander Edlich '96 will travel to Europe on Fulbright grants to do research in Germany and France.
Spaht, an economics major, plans to spend the next year conducting a case study of a West German firm that bought out an eastern-based firm.
Spaht said he hopes the scholarship will enable him to investigate the effects of the buy-out on the work force and social conditions within the firm.
Spaht, who said he has always had a knack for foreign languages, studied German at the College and spent his sophomore summer on the Language Study Abroad program in Mainz.
After his year abroad, Spaht will work in investment banking for Morgan Stanley in New York.
"It will be hard work and crazy, but I'll learn a lot," he said. Spaht said he might consider business school after working for Morgan Stanley.
Edlich is less certain about his future, and he said he will use his year in France to decide what to do next.
Edlich, who was awarded a Fulbright French Government Teaching Assistantship, will be teaching conversational English in a French high school. Edlich will also be taking classes and researching World War II.
Edlich, a history major and French minor, said the French language is part of his life. He has lived in France, and his mother is a French teacher.
Edlich said a Foreign Study Program to Toulouse made him "able to examine culture through literature, art and political history."
"Though I am not sure what my vocation will be later in life, I know I want to be involved in foreign relations and be able to teach undergraduates," Edlich wrote in an e-mail message.
Students are invited to the faculty and student panel on the Fulbright Scholarships in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the program on Wednesday, May 15 at 4:00 p.m. in 3 Rockefeller Center.
Every year Fulbright Grants give more than 800 Americans the opportunity to study or conduct research around the world.
Barry Goldwater Scholarship
Kathryn Celenza '97 and Tara Holm '97 were awarded Barry M. Goldwater scholarships to do research in mathematics and the natural sciences.
The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation awards scholarships of up to $7,000 to eligible students for study in mathematics and natural sciences in preparation for careers in those areas.Each scholarship covers expenses for fees, books, and room and board. Juniors are eligible for a maximum of two years of support.
Celenza, a biology major, said she was always interested in science, in part because her father is an engineer and her brother is interested in meteorology.
She said she even mailed a letter to NASA in the sixth grade to ask about the requirements for astronauts. Unfortunately, she learned she was "too short for everything."
She is currently working on a thesis with Biology Professor Samuel Velez.
As a Hughes Undergraduate Research intern, she analyzed the neuromuscular affects of seratonin and caffeine on crayfish. She will spend the summer at Wellesley College, where she will study rats' cardiac cells.
Holm, a mathematics major, is in Budapest this term studying combinatorics, the study of permutations and combinations.
"One really can't ask for more ... a beautiful city, excellent professors, interesting mathematics," she wrote in an e-mail message.
"Combinatorics is the subject which I did my research freshman year at Dartmouth, and so the opportunity to come and study with some of the best combinatorialists was irresistible," she wrote.
She is considering returning to Budapest a year after graduation to study with her current professors.
In addition to her zeal for math, her passion for music dominates her Dartmouth experience as well. She is the drum major for the marching band and performs with the chamber singers.
Harry S. Truman Scholarship
Miranda Johnson '97, a government major from Illinois, received a Harry S. Truman Scholarship this year, which awards $30,000 merit-based scholarships to junior-level college students who wish to attend graduate school in preparation for careers in government or elsewhere in public service.
Johnson, a minor in environmental studies, intends to attend public policy school and to work for the government and non-profit organizations.
Johnson has interned for Sen. Carol Mosely-Braun, D.-Ill., in Chicago and served as a liaison between the government and prisoners who said the government mistreated them. In an internship in Washington, D.C. last spring, Johnson worked on welfare reform.
She said it was the first time she felt able to make a tangible contribution to policy issues.
Johnson's extracurricular activities are related to her passions in the classroom. She is a sexual assault peer advisor and an intern at the Women's Resource Center. She is also involved in Women in Politics, and she co-chaired an environmental task force and participates in the Dartmouth Environmental Network.
German Academic Exchange Service
Naomi Parker '96, an engineering and German double major, was awarded funds to spend a year studying in Germany by the German Academic Exchange Service.
Next year, she will work in a research lab at the Technical University of Aachen.
"The basic project is cancer research," Parker said. "I will freeze cancer cells and try to kill the infected ones without killing the healthy cells."
Parker said she hopes to take political science and German literature courses in Aachen along with engineering courses next year.
She was in Berlin for an FSP last winter, then studied literature and language at the Free University of Berlin. She also participated in an internship at Siemens, an industrial firm.
"Berlin was the turning point of my academic career," Parker said. "I spent so much time doing prerequisites for engineering, that I was starving for something else."
She is currently working on a thesis in engineering in which she hopes to develop a new tool to measure how much hip or knee implants are oxidized. Parker is also studying Enlightenment traditions in children's books and what society is trying to teach youth for her German thesis.
Using her engineering background, at the College she was a WISP mentor and a Presidential Scholar and peer mentor. "I've tried to convince many women here to take a shot at sciences," she said.
Rotary Foundation Scholarship
This regional scholarship awards students who have completed at least two years of college course work one academic year of study abroad. Accepted scholars are expected to be outstanding ambassadors of goodwill to the people of the host country.
Gholson Lyon '96, a biology major, will be going to Cambridge University in England on this scholarship. Only 13 out of the 1,200 scholarships awarded allow students to go to Cambridge.
He participated in the Mainz LSA and Berlin FSP. "While I was abroad, I got really interested in everything about Europe. I went to London for a week and was struck by Sir Isaac Newton's diary on display -- his notes taken while he was at Cambridge," Gholson said.
He is currently working on his senior honors thesis, which involves study of mice who lack an enzyme to assist thyroid metabolism.
Before departing for England, Gholson will be doing biomedical research at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md.
James B. Reynolds Scholarship
This College award grants graduating seniors and alumni a $12,000 stipend for study abroad.
This year's recipients are Jenny Land '96, Erika Meitner '96, Monica Oberkofler '96, Ramyar Rossukh '96 and Anne Stone '96.
Land, an English major and French minor, will be studying in England next year. She hopes to study at Oxford and intends to do graduate work in the U.S. as well. She hopes to become a writer and teacher.
"My main goal is to put all my interests together and become a nature writer," she said. Land wrote an article about snakes, which will be published soon in "Vermont Life."
Land is very active outside of her academic life. She was co-chair of the Cabin and Trails division of the Dartmouth Outing Club, directed the forestry team, sings with the chamber singers and Handel Society, volunteers in the costume shop and participates in intramural hockey.
Meitner, a creative writing major, will be going to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to study Judaism and Hebrew next year.
She went on the religion FSP to Scotland and is interested in feminist religion and biblical studies. "I always have one foot in religion," she said. She said she hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in theology.
Meitner describes her activities outside of her studies as "social action." She was Editor in Chief of "Spare Rib," a now-defunct campus publication about women's issues.
"I am hard at work on my poetry thesis -- an original collection. I don't know what the thesis is yet, maybe family and female sexuality," she said.
Meitner was also a finalist for the Marshall Scholarship for two years of study in the United Kingdom, but described her interview as "the worst experience."
She said her advice for scholarship applicants is "to keep a sense of humor" through the process.
Oberkofler said, "After looking at my options, I decided I really wanted time away from U.S. culture and things I know so well and [the Reynolds] was the perfect opportunity." A history major and German minor, Oberkofler She will also be going to England next year.
Oberkofler combines academic and leadership roles. She is an intern to College President James Freedman, Student Assembly vice president of student organizations, an editor of the Aegis, secretary for the Senior Executive Committee and a peer advisor.
Oberkofler was working in the Senate last summer when there was an accident in Bosnia in which three diplomats were killed. She coincidentally "fielded" calls from the Pentagon when she was staying at the home of Lt. Gen. Wesley Clark.
She also worked as an intern on capitol hill for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas and assisted the senator's Legislative Assistant for Defense and Foreign Affairs.
Rossukh, a history major, will be doing ethnographic field work on the tribes of Iran next year.
Currently he is working on a thesis regarding the lion funerary monuments of the Bakhtriyari tribe of Iran.
"I was a Mellon fellow my junior year and spent four months in Iran doing research on this topic," he said. He said he applied for the Reynolds to complete his work in Iran.
He is a research intern to the director of the Hood Museum. Last year, he was an intern to Dean of the College Lee Pelton, and produced the Latino Resource guide.
Stone, a classics major who will be going to Greece next year, said her award will allow her to pursue graduate studies in archeology.
She will be participating in excavations and write a publishable paper. She hopes to prove that different ceramic styles are indicative of different political entities.
"I have to establish a methodology by examining shapes and decorations and how they point to specific regions," she explained.
She went on an FSP last spring to many excavation sites, but did not participate in the dig. Stone also served as a teaching assistant to FSPs which went to Greece and Turkey.
"My interest was born when I worked on a dig when I was 16 in Israel in a summer program and uncovered a mosaic," she said.
