This year’s winners are:

• Alison Beresford ’09, a native of Ramona and an English and comparative literary studies major, will travel to Hungary to investigate current trends in Hungarian literary language, particularly in contemporary theater.
• Alexander Altman ’09, an urban and environmental policy major from Mill Valley, is going to Ecuador to conduct a two-stage study of the cultural perception and level of societal awareness of obesity in urban Ecuador. The second stage will involve a four-part plan to address obesity prevention at a Rotary Club health clinic outside of Quinto. “It feels wonderful to win the award,” Altman says. “It’s a nice ending to a great four years at Oxy.”
• Amanda Lounsbury ’09, a physics major from Westport, Conn., will be traveling to Ghana to study whether polluted surface water can be cost-effectively treated using membrane filtration units powered with photovoltaic modules.
• Rebecca de Faria Slenes ’07, a diplomacy and world affairs and French double major from Campinas, Brazil, will be heading to Morocco to do field research and coursework to examine women’s access to the legal system and to customary methods to resolve marital conflict. Slenes also was awarded the Critical Language Enhancement Award to study intensive Arabic in Morocco for three months prior to her research and two months concurrent with her research. “Doing field research in Morocco is a dream come true,” she says.  “It was a desire sparked by my senior comps research, where I studied the 2004 reform of the Moroccan family law. I will be working with women from different socio-economic backgrounds in Casablanca looking at factors affecting their choices in measures to end family conflict.”
• Caroline White, a biology major from Orinda, will be heading to Taiwan as an English teaching assistant.
• Jessica Lobl ’09, an American Studies major from Rochester, Minn., will be an English teaching assistant in Spain.

The Fulbright program, which covers travel, education, and living expenses, was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. This year some 7,000 students applied for the prestigious award, which is administered by the U.S. Department of State and which offers funded opportunities for yearlong research and study abroad.