WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2018
/PRNewswire/ --
Photos from reception: https://bit.ly/2OMXzyl
The US-Ireland Alliance celebrates the 20th
anniversary of its George J. Mitchell Scholarship program with the
selection of the 12 members of the class of 2020 following
interviews held in Washington,
D.C. today.
The Scholarship program, which sends future American leaders to
the island of Ireland for a year
of graduate study, was created by the founder and president of the
US-Ireland Alliance, Trina Vargo,
and is named in honor of Senator George
Mitchell's contributions to the Northern Ireland peace process.
Ireland's Ambassador to
the United States, Daniel Mulhall, hosted a reception for finalists
and alumni at his residence on Friday evening. Carolina Chavez, the Director of the Mitchell
Scholarship Program, spoke of how the popularity of one of the most
prestigious scholarships in the US continues to grow. A
record number of 370 people applied for the 12 scholarships -- a
nearly 14% increase over the previous year and a 29% increase over
5 years. More than 200 Congressional districts and an equal
number of colleges and universities are represented in this year's
applicant pool. Recipients are chosen on the basis of
academic distinction, leadership, and service.
Members of the 2020 class include a recent intern for Ambassador
Nikki Haley at the US Mission to the
UN, who also combats political polarization in the United States; a researcher on the gut
microbiome; two theater practitioners; a journalist and
researcher, currently working on an upcoming Netflix documentary
series on the 14th amendment; two reproductive rights
advocates; and the co-president of Columbia University's chapter of Lean In, who is
interested in the philosophical implications of artificial
intelligence.
Candidate interviews were held at the Doyle Collection's Dupont
Circle Hotel in Washington,
D.C. In addition to Ambassador Mulhall, members of the
selection committee included Melissa
Boteach, Senior VP of the Poverty to Prosperity Program
at the Center for American Progress and Mitchell Scholar, Class of
2006; George C. Heslin,
Founding Artistic Director of the Origin Theatre Company in
New York City; Justin McCarthy, Senior Vice President at
the Patient & Health Impact group at Pfizer; Dr.
Bob Mauro, Executive Director of
the Irish Institute and founding Director of the Global
Leadership Institute at Boston College;
Dr. Marc O Griofa, Chief Medical/Technology Officer at
Noninvasive Medical Technologies; and Kathleen Romig, Senior Policy Analyst at the
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Mitchell Scholar, Class
of 2002.
Sponsors of the Mitchell Scholarship program include
Ireland's Department of Education
and Skills, Morgan Stanley, Pfizer, and the American Ireland Fund.
The Scholars will begin their studies in Ireland in September 2019.
George J. Mitchell Scholarship, Class of
2020
Minhal Ahmed immigrated to the
United States from Pakistan
at age four, attending five schools in five years before his
parents settled in New York. He became interested in how our
bodies and health are impacted both by our genes and our zip codes
at a young age. A Bioengineering major at Northeastern University in Boston, Minhal focuses his research on the gut
microbiome, the trillions of microorganisms that live in our
intestine. In the lab, he studies how the ecosystem in our
gut may affect how we think and feel. Outside of the lab,
Minhal works with Peer Health Exchange, a national organization
that seeks to bring health equity to under-resourced schools by
providing health education. After countless hours teaching health
classes in Boston high schools, he
was recently selected as President of the Northeastern campus chapter, one of the largest in
the country. For fun, Minhal DJs at his campus radio station.
A Goldwater Scholar, he will study Applied Psychology at University
College Cork.
Born and raised in Texas,
Kathryn Ammon has worked on
reproductive rights since her freshman year at the University of
Kansas. She has held various leaderships positions at SURGE,
the campus feminist and abortion access organization, including
serving as its President, where she grew SURGE's bank account and
membership roster. Committed to advocating for marginalized
students on campus, Kathryn was elected to the Student Senate, and
then nominated to the university-wide governing body, the
University Senate, becoming the only woman student senator.
In addition to holding various other leadership positions on
campus, Kathryn has worked on reproductive justice issues with an
indigenous feminist collective in New
Mexico and with Planned Parenthood Great Plains, and as a
votebuilder with the Kansas Democratic Party. A triple major
in History, Political Science and Women's Studies, Kathryn will
study Equality Studies at University College Dublin.
Annabel Barry is an
English major at Princeton University. A believer in the
political power of literature, she is the co-editor-in-chief for
The Nassau Literary Review, Princeton's oldest undergraduate publication
and only traditional literary magazine. She has been awarded
several competitive research and travel grants that allowed her to
travel to the Northern Ireland
border and write a collection of creative non-fiction stories about
the border, and to study Ulysses at Oxford. Her pieces have
been published in literary magazines and her paper about
John Keats has been accepted for
publication in the Keats-Shelley Review. Annabel is also a
scenic and puppet designer with a passion for sustainable design
and community-based theater. On campus, Annabel represents
the English Department's Class of 2019 on the Undergraduate
Advisory Committee, is a peer academic advisor to 20 underclassmen,
and is a fellow and mentor at the Princeton Writing Center. A
Connecticut native, she will study
Philosophy and Literature at University College Dublin.
Ella Klahr Bunnell is an
American Studies major at Stanford
University where she studies issues of justice, equity and
conflict. She has interned with the Civil Rights Division of
the Department of Justice where she researched voting procedures,
and with the ACLU where she conducted research on race and criminal
justice. A Boston native,
Ella also interned with Congressman Joseph
Kennedy and Senator Elizabeth
Warren. At Stanford, she
has assisted a Stanford professor in her research on civilian
oversight of police violence and is currently analyzing criminal
disenfranchisement law, with a focus on America's divergence from
international norms and modern democratic practices since the
1970s, for her senior thesis. Last year, Ella's paper on W.E.B
DuBois was published in the Stanford Undergraduate Research Journal
and was designated as one of the best papers for the 2016-2017
academic year. She will study Conflict Transformation and
Social Justice at Queen's University Belfast.
Keshav Goel is a dual
major in Biology and Economics at Williams
College. Understanding that socioeconomic inequality is one
of the greatest public health concerns in the United States, he has conducted research
on ailments that disproportionally affects the world's poor.
Growing up in Northern California,
he co-authored his first published clinical paper at the age of 16
on the automated detection of congenital heart defects in
newborns. He is currently conducting a yearlong senior
biology thesis to uncover the mechanisms of asthma, which largely
affects impoverished children. He has also conducted health
economics research with Harvard Medical
School to assess the quality and effectiveness of federally
funded clinical trials. Keshav works as a peer mentor with a
local organization to provide drama therapy to adolescent survivors
of trauma. An aspiring physician, Keshav will study
Immunology and Global Health at NUI Maynooth.
Makayla Haussler is a
senior at Yale majoring in
Political Science. Born and raised in Nebraska, she has been politically active
since high school, working on reproductive rights and social
justice issues. At Yale, she's
held various positions with College Democrats, served as chairwoman
of a Yale student's campaign for
city council, and interned in the office of the Massachusetts Attorney General, Planned
Parenthood, and for other progressive causes. In 2017, she
spearheaded Yale students'
campaign for a Connecticut bill to
expand financial aid for undocumented students at public
colleges. Last summer, she returned to Nebraska to intern at a local social justice
not-for-profit and ended up working to prevent efforts to repeal
the Affordable Care Act. Makayla will study the political
rhetoric of the Together for Yes campaign in the Gender Studies
program at University College Dublin.
Alison Mahoney is the
Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Bluelaces Theater Company, a
NYC-based company that produces multisensory, immersive theater for
audiences with developmental disabilities. She is also the Manager
of Accessibility at Lincoln Center, managing several programs
including an internship program for young adults with developmental
disabilities and a performance series for individuals with
dementia. Once a week, she co-teaches theater classes for students
with disabilities as young as 9 and as old as 87. Raised in St.
Croix, she became interested in arts accessibility at Northwestern University, where she graduated in
2014 with a double major in Theater and Gender Studies. In
collaboration with Theater Stands with Autism (now Seesaw Theatre),
Alison devised multisensory theatrical experiences for autistic
children, the first of their kind at Northwestern. She will study Contemporary
Performance Practices at Ulster University.
Rohan Naik is a journalist
and researcher, currently working on an upcoming Netflix
documentary series on the 14th amendment.
Originally from Houston, he
graduated from Yale earlier this
year, where he worked as a reporter for the Yale Daily News and at
the New Haven Independent. He was also an intern at the
Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and ProPublica where he
researched and reported stories about air pollution in London and how police in the US respond to
hate crimes. As the Head Peer Liaison at the Asian American
Center at Yale, he created
programming around the stigmatization of mental health issues and
directed one of the university's largest mentorship programs.
He was also selected by Yale to
conduct sexual violence prevention programming. In collaboration
with the city of New Haven, Rohan
also founded a gun buyback program. Rohan is interested in
researching how society remembers and constructs the past and will
study Public History at Queen's University Belfast.
A native of North Carolina,
Rachel Petherbridge is a
Biomedical Engineering major at Boston
University where her accomplishments in synthetic biology
have earned her a Goldwater Scholarship and selection as a Harvard
Amgen Scholar. She served as Vice President of the BU
Undergraduate Women in Science and Engineering group and is a
Student Leader for STEM Pathways where she helps expand STEM
opportunities for students in Boston. She was also a member
of BU's iGEM team, an international competition for students in
synthetic biology, which won Gold (2016) and Silver (2018) at the
Jamboree. Rachel began college with two passions:
science and policy. She's combined them by holding leadership
roles in the BU Model UN conferences and working as a staff writer
for the BU International Relations Review, where she's written on
topics such as the Zika virus and climate change. She will
study International Public Policy and Diplomacy at University
College Cork.
Mitchell Polonsky is an
English and Theater, Dance, and Media double major at Harvard University, where he has directed 18 plays
in addition to assisting professional directors on major stages
around the world. A believer that performance can be a social
service, Mitchell has directed productions in uncommon
places. He directed a free double-bill of Brecht's Life of
Galileo and Buchner's Woyzeck in the central courtyard
of the Fogg Art Museum and directed a production of Sophocles''
Antigone at Harvard Stadium, attracting over 6,000 community
members. Earlier this year, he was awarded a fellowship to
direct a Tennessee Williams' production at the Bunker Theater in
London. When his rehearsal schedule provides a break,
Mitchell works at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, distributing
necessities to those who cannot be accommodated by the shelter. A
Cincinnati native, Mitchell will
study Theater Directing at The Lir, Trinity
College Dublin.
A New York native,
Kara Schechtman is a double
major in English and Computer Science at Columbia University.
Interested in the philosophical implications of artificial
intelligence, Kara completed summer internships at Google and, most
recently, at YouTube, where she worked on a project to improve the
quality of Mixes, which are infinite auto-generated music
playlists. On campus, Kara was Co-President of the Columbia
chapter of Lean In, where she quintupled its membership and oversaw
the creation of a mentor program that partners 70 Columbia women with women professionals in
NYC. She received Columbia's King's Crown Award in Principled
Action for her Lean In work. Kara was also the Features
editor for the weekly magazine of the Columbia Spectator,
Columbia's newspaper of record, and created the first podcast of
the publication. She will study Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin.
Matthew Wigler is a
Political Science major a Stanford
University and is interested in both national and
international politics. During his internship with the State
Department in 2017, Matt worked with diplomats at the US Mission to
the United Nations to expand the sanctions regime targeting North
Korea. He also served Ambassador Nikki Haley in her executive office, working to
help coordinate the 2017 UN General Assembly. Last summer,
Matt was awarded a Stanford grant for the Purple America
Project. With the goal of understanding and
combating political polarization in the United States, Matt traveled with the
leader of the UC Davis College
Republicans to 14 split-ticket Congressional districts to engage
swing voters. His blog, Swing District, documented his
travels and conversations. Matt serves as an undergraduate student
senator at Stanford and as Vice President of the College Democrats
on campus. A Long Island
native, he will study International Politics at Trinity College Dublin.
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SOURCE US-Ireland Alliance