![\"Graduate](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/FulbrightZareenThomas.jpg\")
<\/a>This year\u2019s fellowship recipients are graduate student Zareen Thomas, and recent graduates Julianna Lau \u201914 (CLAS) and Krisela Karaja \u201914 (CLAS). In addition, undergraduate Katie Loughrey \u201916 (CLAS) won a summer institute award.<\/p>\n
Thomas, a doctoral candidate in anthropology, is currently in Colombia, studying the relationship between community, youth organizations, and marginalized urban youth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Fulbright allows participants on both sides of the exchange to have a less caricatured understanding of each country,\u201d says Thomas. \u201cWe work as cultural ambassadors, providing each other with a more nuanced understanding of our nations’ peoples.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomas, who aspires to a career in academe specializing in the Andes and the cultural production of music and art, praised UConn\u2019s supportiveness in helping her obtain the Fulbright. \u201cLuAnn provided workshops and feedback to help us write our personal and grant purpose statements so they are most salient for a broad audience,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n And with faculty support, Karaja, an Honors graduate with a double major in English and Spanish literature, departs in October for eight months in Albania.<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever I received an update about my application for a U.S. Student Fulbright Award, I sent an email to about 10 of my professors,\u201d says Karaja. \u201cAll my Spanish and English professors were so helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n Karaja will use her Fulbright award to complete a project she began as an undergraduate, comparing the works of contemporary Albanian poets and their perspectives on nationalism and transnationalism. She initially visited Albania with support from a UConn Summer Undergraduate Research Fund (SURF) grant.<\/p>\n \u201cOn that first trip I called poets and scholars to network for possible future work, which made the Fulbright possible,\u201d says Karaja. Karaja grew up speaking English, while learning Albanian from her parents, who immigrated with her to America when she was two years old.<\/p>\n Karaja was editor-in-chief of this past spring\u2019s issue of Long River Review<\/em>, the annual UConn student-run literary magazine, as well as president of UConn\u2019s Albanian Student Association.<\/p>\n \u201cI would love to become a literature professor or maybe work at the United Nations,\u201d she says. \u201cI enjoy working where I\u2019m generating dialogue between different cultures; I\u2019m really happy about the Fulbright because it facilitates that dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n Lau, an Honors graduate in biological sciences, won a year-long Fulbright award to work as an English teaching assistant at an elementary school in Taiwan. An aspiring pediatrician, Lau wanted to immerse herself in a new culture, learning teaching and interpersonal skills to prepare for her career.<\/p>\n \u201cI want my students to understand that learning English is important to connect with the rest of the world, and be competitive in the global market,\u201d says Lau.<\/p>\n Loughrey, an Honors student majoring in English and anthropology with a minor in digital arts, spent July 2014 at Nottingham Trent University on a United Kingdom Summer Institute Fulbright Award.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>