As a first-generation American whose mother is from Nicaragua and father came from Turkey, Kimberly Kazdal has long envisioned a career as a U.S. diplomat. After her graduation this month from Baruch College with a degree in public affairs, she will take the next step toward her goal: a Fulbright Binational Internship in Mexico. She plans to spend a year working, studying and helping promote women’s economic empowerment in Latin America.
Kazdal is one of 11 CUNY students and recent graduates who are 2021 winners of year-long fellowships and internships from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, the country’s flagship international educational grant award. Four other students have been named winners of Fulbright-Canada summer research internships.
“CUNY is exceedingly proud of its students and graduates whose determination and achievement through this difficult year has led to their selection as winners of Fulbright grants, among the most prestigious honors for American students,” said Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “These students are a diverse and talented group who are embracing both the opportunity and challenge of leaving New York to pursue their academic goals while immersing themselves in the cultures of other countries, even as the global pandemic persists. This is an especially important year for the United States to affirm its commitment to international cooperation and understanding, and I am delighted for the CUNY students who will be part of it.”
Honoring Her Roots
Kazdal will work at a Mexican company or nongovernment organization and take graduate classes in international business at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, the country’s top school for economics, international relations and law. The unique Fulbright Binational Internship was created in 1996 to promote understanding between the U.S. and Mexican business communities. On her own, Kazdal has also arranged to volunteer with a nonprofit, Pro Mujer, that promotes access to finance, health and educational services for women throughout Latin America. She says she feels a strong affinity for the Nicaraguan side of her heritage. “I grew up hearing all the stories of the revolution in the ’80s from my grandmother and my mom and uncles, and ever since then I was really interested in international relations and the economic and political circumstances of Latin America,” Kazdal said. “This Fulbright will be the perfect opportunity to work on issues that affect Latin American people, so it’s allowing me to honor my roots.”
Ten other CUNY students and recent graduates have been awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Program grants that will send them abroad to conduct research projects or teach English in schools.
Ancient Vessels, Timeless Insights
The research grant recipients include two Ph.D. students in anthropology at the Graduate Center whose Fulbrights will help advance their dissertations. Evan Mann will go to Canada to study the ceramic vessels and pottery of hunter-gatherers who lived in what is now Quebec. Carly Batist will pursue her study of lemurs in Madagascar in a project aimed at furthering conservation of the endangered primates.
Mann’s research has made Quebec almost his second home as he’s explored clues to North American cultural history through ancient ceramics. Living with colleagues in lakeside cabins and camping along rivers, he’s paddled to his archaeological sites and worked with indigenous people in the region north of the Ottawa River.
“When you get your Ph.D. in anthropology you have to also know a little bit of chemistry, you have to understand culture, you have to understand some sociology, psychology and economics. You’re studying what it means to be human,” Mann said in an interview with the Graduate Center. “The Fulbright will allow me to have access to my research for this dissertation in a way that would be very difficult otherwise.”
Speaking Lemur in Madagascar
Batist, who is studying biological anthropology, plans to spend a year in Madagascar researching the vocalizations of lemurs, an endangered primate that is endemic to the island country off the southeast coast of Africa. Her project may be delayed by the pandemic, however, with Madagascar still closed to travelers. For now, Batist is researching from home and working remotely with collaborators on the island while waiting for the country to reopen its borders.
She became fascinated by lemurs while doing research for her master’s degree. Now, she is investigating the role of vocal calls in their social and reproductive strategies. “I’m essentially trying to speak lemur,” Batist said in an interview with the Graduate Center. Studying the animals’ communication can help monitor the range and abundance of a population whose rainforest habitat has been fragmented by deforestation. Batist intends to spend part of her fellowship training local research technicians and translating conservation technology resources into Malagasy and French, the country’s official languages.
Another CUNY graduate student, Ryan King of Queens College, has been awarded a Fulbright grant that will take him to Germany after his graduation this spring from the college’s dual master’s degree program in history with a Certificate in Archives and Preservation of Cultural Materials. King, who has written the text for several comic books, will work with researchers at Freie Universität Berlin on a project he hopes will lead to the publication of a nonfiction book that uses the methods of a graphic novel to explore a psychological disorder. After completing his Fulbright, he hopes to work at an academic library or archive specializing in comic book and graphic novel collections.
Seven CUNY students and recent graduates will spend the year abroad as Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETA) in schools around the world. They will teach and help lead activities that promote cultural exchange.
- Aisha Fuenzalida Butt, who graduates this spring with an anthropology degree from City College, will be a Fulbright ETA in two schools in the Canary Islands in Spain, and will work with children on community projects that focus on coastal climate change and pollution. She is this year’s valedictorian of the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership.
- Cassiady Perard graduates this spring from City College and will be a Fulbright ETA in Benin, West Africa. A member of the Skadden Arps Honors Program in Legal Studies at the Colin Powell School at City College, she plans to pursue a master’s in public policy after her Fulbright year.
- Hanna Cao, a double major in childhood education and mathematics at Hunter College, will spend her Fulbright year as an ETA in Taipei City, Taiwan.
- Jason Nagourney is graduating this spring from Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College with a double major in history and biology and will spend his Fulbright year as an ETA in Lithuania.
- Noel Sanchez, a December 2019 graduate of Hunter College who majored in urban studies with a minor in African/Latinx studies, will be a Fulbright ETA in the Canary Islands of Spain.
- Lina Rahmani, a masters student in adolescent literacy at Hunter College, will serve as an ETA at Yalova University in Turkey.
- Saher Rahiel graduated in 2020 from Hunter College with a major in chemistry and a minor in anthropology and will serve as an ETA at a secondary school in South Korea.
In addition, four Brooklyn College students have been selected for Fulbright-Canada MITACS Globalink internships, a summer research program that places students with researchers at universities in Canada. This year the internships will be conducted remotely. The four students are Carina D’Urso, Harsa Fatima, Marwa Islam and Levi Satter.
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