Ryan Chelese Alaniz, a PhD student in Sociology, received a Fulbright Full Grant to Honduras.  His dissertation research will compare the different trajectories of two initially similar Honduran communities built by two non-governmental organizations (NGOs) after Hurricane Mitch.  Alaniz received a M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of California-Santa Barbara in 2004 and a B.A. in History from Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo in 2000.

Clelia Anna Mannino, a PhD candidate in Psychology, is one of twenty students nationally to receive a Fulbright Full Grant to Italy.  Her dissertation will investigate how Italy’s changing cultural climate is shaping and re-defining conceptions of community, and how this complex process links to identity and nationalism.  Mannino received a B.A. in Psychology and Italian from Mount Holyoke College in 2004.

Ashley McKim Olstad, a PhD candidate in Germanic Studies, is one of eighty students nationally to receive a Fulbright Full Grant to Germany.  Her dissertation will explore the legal categories of Jüdische Zuwanderer, Russian Jewish immigrants, and Spätaussiedler, ethnic German return migrants.  Olstad received a M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago in 2001 and a B.A. in German and Anthropology from the University of California-Davis in 1998.

Heather Michelle Taterka, ’09, M.S. in Food Science, is the recipient of the University of Minnesota Graduate School’s Fulbright Grant Exchange Program with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway.  She will study atmospheric freeze drying systems in Professor Trygve Eikevik’s lab.  Taterka received a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 2007.

Drew Anthony Thompson, a PhD student in History, received a Fulbright Full Grant to Mozambique.  His dissertation will document how photographers used photographic production and exhibition to participate in anti-colonial activities and processes of national building in late-colonial and early independent Mozambique.  Thompson received a B.A. in History and Art History from Williams College in 2005.