Four Oregon State Students Selected for Fulbright U.S. Student Program
Oregon State University has placed four in the Fulbright U.S. Student Program for the 2024-25 academic year, giving OSU 52 Fulbrighters over the past 11 years.
Oregon State’s latest selections are Emma Baughman of Portland, Mohnish Judge of Lake Oswego, Aubreyanna Olsen of Salem and Camden Schmidt of Cheyenne, Wyoming. A fifth OSU applicant, Brittni Wisner of Palmer, Alaska, has been chosen as an alternate.
Baughman, Judge and Olsen are seniors in the OSU Honors College and Schmidt is an Honors College graduate.
Baughman is majoring in environmental sciences with a minor in chemistry. Through her Fulbright placement she will collaborate on a research project with the Bolin Centre for Climate Research at Stockholm University in Sweden to reconstruct past storm fluctuations using paleoarchives and geochemical methodology.
Judge, majoring in economics with a minor in religious studies, will work on a research project in India to analyze the mechanisms through which media function, connect and interact with Tibetan diaspora communities. Using a linguistic and communicative lens, Judge will observe the production and consumption of media created by the Central Tibetan Administration’s Department of Information and International Relations.
Olsen is majoring in Spanish and international studies with a minor in education. She will spend an academic year as an English teaching assistant in Colombia, engaging young adult learners and aiming to increase their confidence through practicing conversation skills.
Schmidt graduated from OSU in 2023 with an Honors degree in environmental economics and policy and minors in global development and peace studies. He will spend the 2024-25 academic year in Poland as an English teaching assistant in preparation for a career in law and social welfare.
Wisner will graduate this spring with a master’s degree in English and is hoping to embark on an English teaching assistantship in Norway. Eventually she’d like to enroll in a doctorate program in English literature and return to Alaska to teach English at a university.
“Our Fulbright research grantees are pursuing innovative projects to generate new knowledge in the areas of climate change and the media,” said LeAnn Adam, director of National and Global Scholarships Advising at OSU. “Our Fulbright English teaching assistants will not only teach English, but they will bring so much more to their schools and communities abroad through their diverse academic and personal backgrounds. I am so excited for all of them to have this experience and represent OSU and the United States abroad.”
The U.S. Department of State, the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board and host country Fulbright commissions select the honorees for the Fulbright student scholar program, which offers students and recent graduates opportunities for advanced research, university teaching, and primary and secondary school English teaching in more than 140 countries.
Since being established in 1946 under legislation introduced by Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the program has given more than 400,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and professionals the opportunity to study, teach, conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
Fulbright alumni include 62 Nobel Prize laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize recipients, 78 MacArthur Foundation Fellows and 41 people who have served as a head of state or government.