Two KU Doctoral Students Receive Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Award
LAWRENCE — Two doctoral candidates at the University of Kansas have been awarded the prestigious Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Award, receiving a combined $92,000 to conduct research in South America.
Pere DeRoy, a doctoral candidate in women, gender & sexuality studies, received $51,000 from the U.S. Department of Education to travel to Guyana for 10 months to study reproductive health.
Micah Unruh, a doctoral candidate in ecology & evolutionary biology, received $41,000 to travel to Chile to research soil carbon storage.
The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship Program provides opportunities for doctoral candidates to engage in full-time dissertation research abroad in modern foreign languages and area studies. The program is designed to contribute to the development and improvement of the study of modern foreign languages and area studies in the United States.
“Pere and Micah’s projects, as well as their focal languages of Guyanese Creole and Spanish, respectively, reflect the disciplinary and linguistic breadth of scholarly work that is supported by the Fulbright-Hays program,” said Rachel Sherman Johnson, director of internationalization and partnerships at KU International Affairs. “The training and language study they have undertaken at KU has prepared them well for their fieldwork abroad, where they will continue to advance their research and language skills.”