Thirty-two recent Brown graduates and three current graduate students have received Fulbright awards for the 2023-24 academic year to conduct independently designed research projects or teach English in locations across the globe, including engineering’s Mariah Guevara ’23.
Guevara plans to teach English at a vocational school in Vigo, Spain, where she also seeks to establish an engineering club for young girls in the area to improve their early English STEM vocabulary. Following this opportunity, she will attend medical school.
She earned her biomedical engineering degree in May, and was on a team that fabricated sterile, body-safe, single-use surgical tools as a capstone project. “I was a design project teaching assistant for ENGN0040 and a lab mentor/TA for ENGN1230, experiences I'll pull on when establishing my engineering club in Spain. My time as a TA also firmly solidified my love of helping people learn, which spurred me on to apply for the Fulbright in the first place.
“Being Hispanic, I've always been able to trace my family down both native Mexican and Spaniard lines, and I'm very excited to gain access to this part of my heritage,” she said.
While at Brown, Guevara worked in the Colvin Lab, fabricating gold nanoparticles and researching ways to use them for layer-by-layer drug delivery systems. She also researched their applications for enzyme crystallization. Outside of classes, she was a member of the Society for Professional Hispanic Engineers (SPHE), the Society for Women Engineers (SWE), the Brown Ballroom Dance team, and ARRR!!! pirate a cappella.
Brown has ranked as one of the top three student Fulbright producers in the nation for the past seven years, earning the highest spot on the list in 2021, 2018, 2017 and 2016; the No. 2 rank in 2019 and 2020; and the No. 3 spot in 2022. The U.S. Department of State, which oversees the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, will release data for the 2023-24 award cycle next spring.
The School of Engineering at Brown has produced six Fulbright winners in the past seven years, including Leanne Block ’17 (France), Isabelle Bauman ’19 (Denmark), Hope McGovern ’19 (Austria), Kit Sum Wu ’19 (Japan) and Julia Henke ‘22 (Nepal).
Founded in 1946, the Fulbright program promotes international peace through intellectual and cultural exchange. Applicants are selected based upon their academic and professional records, the quality and achievability of their proposals, and their capacity to engage culturally with their host communities.
“With its array of grants for teaching, research and graduate study, the Fulbright Program captures the generosity and advocacy, ambition and invention that uniquely characterize students at Brown,” said Joel Simundich, assistant dean of the College for fellowships. “I know this year’s recipients will live out Fulbright’s mission of fostering genuine, transformative cultural exchange, and I look forward to seeing all they will accomplish."