3 Wittenberg students receive Fulbright awards

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Three Wittenberg students have been awarded Fulbright grants this year, an honor that on average goes to one student at the school annually.

“Over the past couple of decades Wittenberg has averaged maybe one successful grantee per year,” said Dave Barry, associate professor of German at Wittenberg.”There have been spells in which we had no luck whatsoever, just as there have been several occasions on which we were delighted to produce two winners. This year, however, is the first time in the college’s history that three seniors have been awarded grants.”

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The Fulbright Program is an international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. The program is designed to increase mutual understanding between Americans and people of other countries.

The Wittenberg students all from Ohio and members of the class of 2019 are Madison Krstich, from Johnstown, Katherine Winner from Cincinnati and Thomas Zabonik of Westerville.

Krstich, who is completing a triple major in Russian and Central Eurasian studies, international studies and history, as well as a minor in Russian language, will spend the 2019-20 academic year as an English teaching assistant in Uzbekistan.

Winner, who is completing a double major in biochemistry/molecular biology and Spanish with a minor in health science, is set to pursue research at the Institute of Parasitology in Ceské Budejovice, Czech Republic, researching “nuclear tRNA export as a quality control of tRNA processing and modification.” The institute is a branch of the Czech Academy of Science, the leading public research institution in the Czech Republic.

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Zabonik, who is completing a triple major in German, international studies, and educational studies, will be working next academic year as an ETA in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.

Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential.

“In a good year, we might have up to four or five solid application files; this year we had six,” Barry said.

The latest Wittenberg trio will join the more than 2,000 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2019-2020 academic year through the program.

Fulbright U.S. student alumni populate a range of professions and include ambassadors, members of Congress, judges, heads of corporations, university presidents, journalists, artists, professors, teachers, etc. They include 59 Nobel Laureates, 82 Pulitzer Prize winners, 72 MacArthur Fellows, 16 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, and thousands of leaders across the private, public, and nonprofit sectors.

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