Twenty-four Stanford students and alumni awarded Fulbright Grants

Twenty-four Stanford affiliates are recipients of grants from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program for the 2023-24 academic year, including seniors, graduate students, and alumni.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards grants annually to more than 1,900 diverse U.S. students, artists, and early career professionals who pursue special projects in more than 140 countries. The newest Stanford grantees will travel to 17 countries, including Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Mexico, and Norway, where they will carry out individually designed research projects, pursue graduate study programs, or take part in English teaching assistant programs during the 2023-24 academic year.

Following are the 2023-24 Fulbright recipients affiliated with Stanford.

Anuj Amin (PhD student, Religious Studies) will work with antiquities officials and historians in Israel. Amin will also study the provenance of Aramaic incantation bowls to better understand their ritual function and their transmission into the modern day.

Leah Balter (BA Human Biology ’23) will conduct a mixed methods case study on Norway’s overlapping COVID-19 pandemic and Ukrainian refugee crisis responses.

Madeline Casas (BS Physics, BA Comparative Literature ’23) will analyze the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation using novel denoising techniques while taking courses in the master’s program in fundamental physics at l’École normale supérieure in Paris.

Danielle Cruz (BS Symbolic Systems, MS Computer Science ’23) will teach English in Brazil and produce a podcast series capturing stories and perspectives from local community members. She also plans to take dance classes in traditional Brazilian styles.

Isaiah Dawid (BA French, BS Biology ’23) will travel to France to study periodontal disease through the creation of an organoid replicating the junctional epithelium. Dawid will specifically focus on the hard tissue/soft tissue interaction.

Jierui Fang (MS Design Impact Engineering ’23) will travel to the Netherlands to investigate mycelium material futures toward wearable applications in dexterity-affected diseases. She will also examine biodesign and sociocultural influences of emerging materials.

Jessica Femenias (BA Philosophy, BA History ’23) will produce a critical historical and theoretical analysis of Haitian migrant labor in rural Dominican Republic, paying special attention to the recent wave of deportations of Dominican-Haitians.

Lauren Gillespie (PhD student, Computer Science) will combine deep learning techniques developed during her PhD, citizen science biodiversity data, and remote sensing imagery to detect patterns of plant biodiversity from the skies in Brazil.

Allison Gross (MA International Education Policy Analysis ’23) will teach English in Indonesia and explore the nuances of Indonesian culture and educational systems.

Chloe Haydel Brown (BS Symbolic Systems ’23, MS Sustainability ’25) will teach English in Argentina, with a side project teaching yoga, dance, and other movement classes.

Alex Heyer (PhD student, Chemistry) will work at KU Leuven in Belgium researching methods for low-temperature methane combustion using zeolites with applications in lowering methane’s greenhouse gas contribution.

Charlie Hoffs (BS Chemical Engineering, MS Community Health and Prevention Research ’23) will travel to Chile to work with Dr. Manuel Prieto and a coalition of Aymara herders, farmers, and organizers to develop policy strategies redirecting water, land, and public investment back to rural Arica.

Darrow Hornik (BA Spanish, MA Latin American Studies ’23) will teach English in Mexico, as well as research Mexican and Latin American artists who create work surrounding the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and understanding the contentious space.

Hannah Johnston (PhD student, History) will conduct archival research in Italy on procurers (“pimps”) and their connections to the broader working worlds of Venice and Rome in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Meagan Khoury (PhD student, Art History) will travel to Italy to research and redirect ideas about early modern feminism away from only the most visible women, and instead center on women’s collective labor and creative networks through the lens of 17th-century Italian embroidery.

Christopher Knight (PhD student, Biology) will use unique underwater CO₂ vent systems in Ischia, Italy, to investigate how ocean acidification will impact the nutritional quality of seafood and its implications for human health.

Elizabeth Nguyen (BS Computer Science ’23) will write a short story collection – inspired by research in Vietnam’s history of militarized women – spanning the Trung sisters and modern-day mandatory military training.

Erica Okine (BA Psychology ’23) will travel to Germany to study the impact of orthodontic tooth movement on jaw tissues, which can enhance treatment accessibility, benefiting oral health.

Stephen Queener (BA International Relations ’23) will study human rights at the Friedrich-Alexander Universität in Nuremberg, Germany, to prepare for an impactful career focused on uplifting the voices of atrocity victims.

Andrew Song (BS Human Biology ’23) will pursue an MSc in bioinformatics and theoretical systems biology at Imperial College London. He will conduct research in axonal regeneration and restorative neuroscience, host music therapy sessions at hospitals, and open a tennis clinic for children with autism.

Lauren Urbont (PhD student, History) will conduct research in Israel on practices related to death and mourning among the Jews of medieval German lands between 1100 and 1350.

Valerie Wang (MS Applied Physics ’22) will investigate predictive precursors to multiple sclerosis using magnetic resonance brain imaging and AI approaches at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Poland.

Katherine Whatley (PhD student, Japanese Literature) will investigate the connection between text and song in pre-modern Japan and examine the musical aspects of classical Japanese literature to create original compositions for the koto (transverse Japanese harp) inspired by ancient Japanese songs and poems.

Emily Wong (BS Mechanical Engineering ’23) will travel to Germany to create a robotic fish that uses artificial intelligence to imitate the electric organ discharges of Mormyrid weakly electric fish, to better understand this method of communication.