Fulbright Scholar Clio Korn ’10
Scripps College graduates less than 250 students each spring, yet the number of prestigious national awards and fellowships its students compete for and win rivals that of many large colleges and universities. This year’s Class of 2010 earned high acclaim for their outstanding academic achievements in several areas.
Seven recent graduates have won National Science Foundation Graduate Research fellowships, which provide $30,000 per year for three years and can be used over a five-year period toward research-focused master’s and doctorate degrees at the recipient’s institution of choice. Rachel Karpman ’10 received a fellowship in mathematical sciences and will study at the University of Michigan; it is highly unusual for a student to receive this honor as an undergraduate. Scripps College alumnae already in graduate school who received NSF Graduate Research fellowships this spring include Stefani Crabtree ’08, in archeology at Washington State; Ivy McDaniel ’08, in genetics at UC Berkeley; Laura McPherson ’08, in linguistics at UCLA; Margaret Scheuermann ’08, in chemistry at the University of Washington; Eva Smith ’09, in materials science at Cornell University; and Elizabeth Zeitler ’06, in chemistry at Princeton University.
Clio Korn ’10 is a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and will travel to Switzerland to conduct neuroscience research at the University of Geneva. The U.S. government’s flagship international exchange program, the Fulbright is one of the most highly esteemed educational scholarships. Recent graduates Keri Zug ’09 and Lisa Nowlain ’08 are also Fulbright scholars this year. Zug will help educate community women in Peru about various health issues. Nowlain will help primary school teachers in Laos create an art curriculum to educate students about the dangers of unexploded ordinances.
Jeanette Charles ’10 and Maya Higgins ’10 join a select group of 40 college seniors nationwide as recipients of the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for 2010-11. Each student is awarded $25,000 to conduct independent research overseas upon graduation. Scripps College has had five Watson fellows in the last five years, and is the only member of The Claremont Colleges with two fellows in 2010. Jeanette was also selected to be a Fulbright scholar, an honor she hopes to defer to next year. Charles will explore the articulation of Afro-Latino communities and identity through poetry, other written literature, and oral histories in Venezuela, Peru, Nicaragua, Martinique, and Ecuador. Higgins will assess whether ecotourism in fragile island ecosystems serves as a conservation strategy or merely accelerates environmental degradation. She will travel to New Zealand, Madagascar, Yap, and Ecuador.
According to the Scripps College’s office of Career Planning & Resources, close to 20% of the 232 members of the Scripps College class of 2010 have been accepted to graduate school, including programs at Brown University, Caltech, the Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London, George Washington University, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Michigan, and USC, among others.
Six graduates are joining Teach for America, and two will enter the Peace Corps.
Approximately 15% of the graduating class will be abroad next fall, in countries such as Argentina, China, Germany, India, Korea, Mexico, Switzerland, and Tanzania.
Almost half of the class plan to be employed full time in the fall, with reported job offers from JP Morgan Chase, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Outdoor Entertainment Design, Guided Discoveries, Human Rights Watch, and the National Security Education Program.