PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - Sixteen undergraduates who were chosen as 2012 Brown International Scholars Program (BISP) fellows were honored in an awards ceremony March 19, 2012, at 4 p.m. at the Hope Club. The students, who each received awards of up to $5,000, will spend the summer pursuing independent projects linking their academic interest with international experiences. The program is managed by the Howard R. Swearer Center for Public Service and funded by the Office of International Affairs.

Speakers at the ceremony included Katherine Bergeron, dean of the College; Matthew Gutmann, vice president for international affairs; Kerrissa Heffernan, BISP director; and Leland Lazarus, a 2011 BISP fellow.

"These are important topics, for you and for the world. You'll be working on things you will learn from and others will learn from you," said Gutmann, remarking on the impressive range of funded projects.

Lazarus warned the students that no matter how prepared they may be for their trip, they'll face many unanticipated variables upon arrival. "There'll be copious amounts of unknowns. Don't fear them. Embrace them, and I guarantee you'll have the experience of a lifetime."

The goal of the three-year-old program is to give undergraduate students a unique opportunity to study an area of interest through an international lens while also exposing them to the fellowship application process. This year's winning projects were submitted by students from a range of concentrations, from visual arts to biology. Their foci are equally varied: the origin of coins found in a shipwreck off the Italian coast; stories of heavyweight athletes who participated in the ancient Olympics in Greece; and the arts and musical culture of Iceland, among others.

Students began the application in the fall, pairing with faculty sponsors and defining their project topics. Most students went through several iterations of their proposal before submitting the final product in January. Those who were chosen for the fellowship will travel to their country of interest, gathering research and multimedia material. When they return in the fall, they'll take part in a series of seminars, which will include sponsoring faculty, to talk about their experiences and how they might rethink their initial proposals based on what they learned. They'll also work with their sponsors and other fellows to produce a final product reflecting their research.

The 2012 Brown International Scholars Program fellows and their projects:

  • Sabine Adrian '13: Agriculture and nutrition projects in rural communities: An ethnographic investigation of NGO intervention in El Salvador;
  • Michael Becker '13: Imagining a New World, A Free World: Women's Protests in the Haitian Revolution and the Possibilities of a New Economic Order;
  • Matthew Block '13: Art and Music in Iceland;
  • Valerie Bondura '13: An Archaeology of the Romani People;
  • Luis Eduardo Campos '13: Larger than Life: The Heavy Events and its Athletes at Ancient Athletic Festivals;
  • Maia Chao '13: Shifting Mayan Perspectives: The Impact of Mayan Community Radio in Guatemala;
  • Vanes Ibric '13: The International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia and the Project of Ethnic Reconciliation
  • Eunseo Jo '13: Korea's Forgotten War;
  • Andrew Lee '13: The Representational Content of Perceptual Experience;
  • Nazli Ozerdem '14: Art in Iceland;
  • Katherine Reardon '12.5: Student Internship at the Cheetah Conservation Fund;
  • Hao Tran '14: Olympism in Action: Understanding its Legacy for an Underprivileged Population of London;
  • Onyebuchi Michael Udozorh '14: Linking Medicine and the Visual Culture;
  • Peiyu Wu '15: Exploring Chinese Parents' Motivations Behind Sending their Children to America;
  • Lucienne Fernandez '14: Excavation, Shipwrecks, Coin Hoards, and Geography: Cultural Interaction Across the Mediterranean.

Source: Brown University