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Kara Boodakian ’07, left, and Millie Gonzalez ’11 at The Nate Berkus Show
Three students have won Fulbright Scholarships that will allow them to live, work, and study in foreign countries this fall. Jessica Counihan ’10, Susan Grunewald ’11 (Wilton, Conn.), and Mildred Gonzalez ’11 (New York, N.Y.) received English Teaching Assistantship Awards, and Brian Carey ’11 (Seaford, Del.) was awarded a Fulbright Research Grant. Thirty one Lafayette students have received Fulbrights in the last 12 years.
Grunewald, a Russian and East European studies major, also received a Fulbright Critical Language Enhancement Award to study Russian. She will be teaching English in Russia.
Grunewald studied abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the summer between her sophomore and junior years and is excited to return to the country.
“I hope to improve my fluency in Russian as well as my knowledge and understanding of the Russian culture. I also hope to meet a series of new and potentially lifelong friends. Russians are very kind and loyal to their friends. I still keep in contact with a few Russians from my summer intensive program,” she says.
Although Grunewald is still deciding what she would like to do after Lafayette, she is leaning towards a career with an international corporation that would allow her to use her Russian and German language skills.
At Lafayette, Grunewald was president of the Tae Kwon Do and Russian clubs, and the co-president of the CHANCE (Creating Harmony and Necessary Cultural Equality) special interest floor. She is a third-year writing associate and a mentor writing associate, and is the Russian language tutor for the Russian 101/102 classes.
This year, Grunewald has been working on her thesis, “The Rocky Road to Modernity: Global Technological Trade and the Soviet Automotive Industry,” with Joshua Sanborn, professor of history and chair of Russian & East European studies, and presented her research this spring at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research.
This semester, she also worked on an independent study in German with Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger, professor of foreign languages and literatures. Building on her thesis research, she studied the development of the East and West German automotive industries in the post-WWII period. Her research won an honor prize at first Moravian-Lafayette Undergraduate Research Conference in German Studies this year.
Gonzalez, a psychology and English double major, will be teaching English in Madrid, Spain. As an English Teaching Assistant, she will be working in classrooms with students who are learning English, as well as with teachers. In her free time, she will be writing poetry and collaborating with students about the art of creative writing.
Gonzalez is interested in becoming a high school teacher.
“Fulbright will help me accomplish this goal since I will be working with students for up to nine months. I plan to do Teach for America after finishing my Fulbright. My Fulbright experience will be excellent preparation for this,” she says.
At Lafayette, Gonzalez is a member of Delta Delta sorority, writes for The Lafayette newspaper, and is a big sister with the Big Brother Big Sister program of the Lehigh Valley. As a writing associate, she also volunteers as a tutor for ProJect of Easton.
Gonzalez did an independent study on psychopaths and the nature vs. nurture debate with Luis Schettino, assistant professor of psychology. She is currently writing a poetry thesis with Lee Upton, professor of English and writer-in-residence.
She also completed externships in New York City with Kara Boodakian ’07, the features manager for The Nate Berkus Show, and has done several internships with nonprofits agencies in New York, including the The Reciprocity Foundation and Row New York.
Carey, who is pursuing a B.S. in civil engineering and an A.B. with a major in economics, will be working with the Disaster Risk Reduction Center in Jamaica and the Seismic Research Center in Trinidad to develop a regional seismic risk calculation tool.
“I hope my research can be successfully implemented to improve the infrastructure of Trinidad and Tobago against structural failures resulting from earthquakes. Personally, I will learn a great deal about seismic modeling and retrofit of existing structures, as well as seismic risk estimation and quantification,” he says.
After Lafayette, Carey plans to study structural engineering in graduate school with the goal of becoming a structural engineer.
Carey has been an active member of Lafayette’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB). Last fall, he led a team in the design of a 5,900 gallon reinforced concrete water storage tank as part of EWB’s ongoing work in the community of El Convento, Honduras.
Last summer, he was an EXCEL Scholar with Anne Raich, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, working on implementing a structural crack prediction model. He also did an independent study with Stephen Kurtz, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, for the National Student Steel Bridge Competition, and will travel to Texas in May for that competition.
Carey had an externship with Turner Construction, and an internship with Pepco Holdings, Inc. This summer he will be an intern with R3M Engineering, Inc.
Counihan will be teaching in Estonia.
See a list of recent Lafayette recipients of national and international scholarships and fellowships for undergraduate and post-graduate study. For information on applying for scholarships and fellowships, contact Julia A. Goldberg, associate dean of the College, (610) 330-5521.