One current Northwestern student and two recent graduates have won fellowships to study in Ireland beginning fall 2009.
Lauren Parnell Marino, SESP ’07, is one of 12 Mitchell scholars selected nationally this year by the U.S.-Ireland Alliance. Marino will pursue a degree in Gender, Globalization and Development at the University of Ireland at Galway.
The Mitchell Scholars program provides funding for one year of graduate study to U.S. students at universities in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, in hopes of creating further cultural understanding among future American leaders, said Elizabeth Pardoe, associate director of the NU Office of Fellowships.
Marino is currently working with a fair trade organization in Tanzania. During her NU career, she served as Northwestern Community Development Corps co-chair and helped found the Global Engagement Summit and the NU Public Interest Program.
Alex Robins, WCAS ’08, was selected as one of three Fulbright scholars to go to Ireland. At the University College Cork, Robins will have the rare opportunity to pursue a master’s in aesthetics co-sponsored by the art and philosophy departments, Pardoe said.
Robins, a former Daily cartoonist, won a Circumnavigators Club Foundation grant in 2006 to study cartooning in various cultures around the world.
Medill senior Caroline Porter has been selected as the only recipient of the Alistair Cooke Fulbright award to study journalism in the U.K.
Porter, a former Daily staffer, has chosen to study in Northern Ireland at the University of Ulster, where she will have the opportunity to work with the International Conflict Research institute. Porter was a student member of the recent NU delegation to the Qatar campus.
Pardoe said she didn’t know of another time when NU had three alumni and students win fellowships to Ireland in the same year. The “Celtic Cats” are a testament to NU students’ broader understanding of Ireland’s significance, as well as the investment of Irish universities in academics, she said.
“The main thing is the multiplier effect of having one in 12, one in three and the one and only,” Pardoe said. “And all heading to Ireland in the same year, to me, is phenomenal.”
