Six UCLA students — all recent alumni or expected 2024 graduates — and one UCLA faculty member have received 2024–25 academic year awards from the Fulbright Program, which fosters international academic and professional exchanges in order to build mutual understanding among Americans and people of other countries.

The students earned U.S. Student Fulbright Awards, one of multiple award categories administered since the Fulbright Program was created in 1946. Primarily funded through the U.S. Department of State, the program offers awards and scholarships to U.S. and foreign students, scholars, educators and professionals, as well as to institutions of higher education. Chris Hanscom, a professor of Asian languages and cultures, received a yearlong Fulbright fellowship to conduct research abroad.

UCLA’s six student awardees — four of whom received English teaching assistant awards and two of whom received research awards — represent disciplines spanning the life sciences, public health and political science. They will spend the coming year in locations such as Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The 2024–25 Fulbright Program award recipients are:

Regina Hieap, an alumna of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health with work experience in child welfare and community health, will travel to Cambodia to become an English teaching assistant while promoting American-Cambodian cultural exchanges. Hieap earned her master’s degree in public health in 2022 with a concentration in health policy and management.

Nathan Klassen, who graduated in June with bachelor’s degrees in both political science and international development studies, will work as an English teaching assistant in an elementary school in Chiayi City, Taiwan. Beyond the classroom, he will regularly interact with the students by participating in different athletic events and teams. “Eventually, I want to work in foreign affairs, thus a Fulbright seemed to be an amazing opportunity to get experience abroad and push me to start learning Mandarin!” he said.

Derek Ren, who graduated in June with a bachelor’s degree in human biology and society, will work as a university-level English teaching assistant in Kazakhstan. As part of his award, he will promote American-Kazkah cultural exchanges through a university student club and/or a local “American Corner” sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

Siya Sharma, who is due to graduate in 2024 with bachelor’s degrees in human biology and society and in anthropology, will use her India Fulbright-Nehru Open Study Research Award to conduct research in Northern India on the prevalence of metabolic and reproductive endocrine disorders within the female population.

Ryan Silverstein, who is due to graduate this year with a bachelor’s degree in political science, will work as an English teaching assistant in Taitung, Taiwan, while engaging in American-Taiwanese cultural exchanges. Silverstein, who pursued a concentration in international relations at UCLA and has been studying Mandarin since high school, completed a study abroad program at University College London while an undergraduate.

Elise Tran, who is due to graduate in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in computational and systems biology, will use her award to conduct research on the high frequency of genetic mutations leading to deafness in Vietnam and promote accessibility to resources for those with hearing loss in Vietnam. Tran spent three of her undergraduate years at UCLA working as an undergraduate student research at the Alexandrova Lab on campus and hopes to pursue a Ph.D. or M.D./Ph.D. that focuses on the intersection of mathematics and biology.

Chris Hanscom, professor of Asian languages and cultures, will conduct research on the late South Korean writer Cho Sehǔi at the Research Institute of Korean Studies of Korea University in Seoul. Hanscom’s research will center on Cho’s lesser-known works and will consider questions of political speech and historical truth in contemporary South Korean fiction.