Next year, an unprecedented number of Penn students will have the opportunity to study and research abroad expense free.
As winners of the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, 18 University students are among 800 winners nationwide who will study for 10 months in their choice of more than 100 participating countries.
"This benefits Penn students in two ways: it gives them an opportunity... to begin graduate study and research and it also gives them an opportunity to work and live as representatives of the United States," Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships Director Art Casciato said.
Named after Sen. William Fulbright, who sponsored legislation to fund the program in 1946, the scholarship fund has seen an increasing number of Penn applicants in the past year.
The past three years have each averaged 55 applicants, 23 finalists and 14 winners.
All of those numbers increased this year when 85 University students applied, 23 were finalists and 18 were selected as winners.
"I'm confident the more Penn students that apply, the more winners we'll have in the future," Casciato said. "We're hoping that this year's success with the Fulbrights will give us momentum as CURF enters its fourth year."
According to Casciato, the recent success with these scholarships is rooted in the collaboration that goes into each application.
"Winning Fulbrights is a team effort," he said. "It begins with very talented Penn students, but it is supported not only by the staff, but also by Linda Koons in the Provosts Office who assembles a committee of faculty members to edit the applications and advise students."
This year the scholarship recipients include undergraduates Kathleen Barthmaier, Katharine Davis, Brian Ehrlich, Rachel Fleischer, Brooke Jones, Megha Jonnalagadda, Atul Joshi, Vani Krishnamurthy, Eric Lee, Jonah Lowenfeld Marjorie Rosenfelt, and Avshalom Rubin and graduate students Sucharita Adluri, Elise Carpenter, Christopher Close, Alexa Firat, Efthimios Parasidis and Paul Zimmerman.
"When CURF was started three years ago, Penn students were already doing very well winning Fulbright Scholarships, Casciato said. "But this year they have surpassed themselves."
Casciato cited the reputation past Penn Fulbright winners have garnered with their work as a factor behind this continued success.
"Penn is doing very well with the Fulbrights," Casciato said. "I'm confident that this kind of success will continue as long as talented Penn students avail themselves of the opportunity to apply."
