Six recent alumni receive Fulbright grants

Students to study performance art, teach language and research disease infection

From left to right: Jesse Appel '12, Daniel Servando Chavez '10, Olivia Edelman '12, 
Skye Fishbein ’12, Kelsey Grab ’12, Rachel Klein ‘12

Six recent Brandeis graduates have been awarded Fulbright grants for the 2012 to 2013 academic year to further their studies and contribute to the international community.

The Fulbright grant program was established in 1946 by the U.S. Congress to foster understanding between the people of the United States and other countries, to exchange ideas and to help find solutions to shared international concerns. Recipients are chosen for academic merit and leadership potential, and are given the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Jesse Appell ’12 has been granted a Fulbright to work on a performance art project entitled "Face and Voice: Chinese Traditional XiangSheng Comedy and The Value of Humor" in China. He'll study traditional comedy techniques of Chinese XiangSheng with the art's foremost expert teacher in Beijing. Appell graduated summa cum laude with a double major in East Asian studies and international and global studies (high honors), and minors in economics and history.

Daniel Servando Chavez ’10 has been awarded a Fulbright grant to study architectural lighting design at the Royal Institute of Technology in Haninge, Sweden. He graduated magna cum laude, with a major in theater arts.



Olivia Edelman ’12 has been awarded a Fulbright grant to work as an English teaching assistant in Turkey. Edelman has already traveled and studied language extensively, having spent a summer studying Arabic at an intensive language institute in Amman, Jordan; studied abroad as a junior at American University of Beirut in Lebanon; lived in Izmir, Turkey during her junior year of high school; and studied in Cairo, Egypt on the state department N-SLIY program. She graduated with a major in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies and a minor in art history.


Skye Fishbein ’12 has received a Fulbright grant to perform research at Stellenbosch University into coinfection of TB and HIV ("A Study of the Synergy between Mycobacterial Infections and HIV in Capetown, South Africa") in South Africa. She also plans to volunteer with the Kick TB program, which empowers children with an awareness of TB/HIV through an integration of soccer and public health awareness. She graduated with an M.S./B.S. in biology and a minor in mathematics.



Kelsey Grab ’12 has been awarded a Fulbright grant to work as an English teaching assistant in Malaysia. As a Sorensen Fellow in 2010, Grab interned at the Bapagrama School in Bangalore, India, where she explored India’s educational system and in summer 2011 Kelsey received the World of Work Fellowship to work as an interior design intern in Bali, Indonesia. While in Bali, she also tutored the local population in English. Grab graduated summa cum laude, with a double major in studio art (highest honors) and sociology, and a minor in peace and conflict studies.


Rachel Klein ‘12 has been awarded a Fulbright grant to work as an English teaching assistant in Nepal. Klein previously studied in Nepal at the School for International Training in Nepal, where she conducted an independent research project on the effectiveness of rehabilitation and reintegration programs for survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. She graduated cum laude with a double major in international and global studies and women's and gender studies, and minors in art history and Hebrew language and literature.

These students join recently profiled graduate students Billy Geibel M.A. ’12 and doctoral student Emily Canning as Fulbright recipients for the upcoming academic year.


Three Brandeis applicants were also selected as alternates: Matthew Kupfer ‘12: Kyrgyz Republic; summa cum laude, majors in IGS with highest honors and anthropology, minor in Russian Studies; Rebecca Starzyk ’12: Andorra; magna cum laude, majors in psychology and Hispanic studies; and Paraska Tolan ’11: Research grant, Jordan; magna cum laude, majors in IMES and politics.