Students, Faculty Win National Awards

August 22, 2006
Contact: Andy Faught

Several Oxy students, alumni and a faculty member have won prestigious scholarships and fellowships this year. They are:

History Professor Nina Gelbart, Anita Johnson Wand Chair in Women’s Studies, has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to research her latest project, “Frenchwomen of Science in the 18th Century.” Gelbart, the seventh faculty member in Occidental history to win the honor, is one of 187 Guggenheim fellows selected from a field of nearly 3,000 applicants in the United States and Canada. The 2006 awards average more than $38,000 and are made to artists, scholars and scientists in recognition of past achievement and promise for future accomplishment.

Jennifer Kyle ’06 of Greenwich, Conn., has been selected as a 2006 Truman Scholar, one of 75 college students selected nationwide for their leadership potential, intellectual ability and likelihood of “making a difference” in government or public sector service. Each Truman Scholarship provides $30,000 for graduate study. Kyle, a diplomacy and world affairs major at Occidental, said she plans to pursue a doctorate in international relations. She is particularly interested in U.S. foreign policy in Africa.

Jeffrey Cannon ’07, a chemistry major from Austin, Texas, and James Gillan ’08, a sophomore chemistry/mathematics major from Concord, have been awarded Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships. The award allots up to $7,500 a year to sophomores and juniors at American colleges and universities intending to pursue careers in math, science, and engineering fields. The pair are among 323 Goldwater winners selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of nearly 1,100 students nominated by college and university faculties. Cannon and Gillan are the 30th and 31st Occidental students to win a Goldwater since 1990.

Mathematics major Patrick Dixon ’06 of San Rafael, N.M., has won a Marshall Scholarship to pursue postgraduate studies in Great Britain. He is the ninth Occidental student since 1972 to be named to receive the prize. The scholarship pays up to $60,000 over two years. Dixon hopes to study mathematical biology at Oxford University.

Eddie A. Jauregui '98 of New York is one of the first winners of a Latham & Watkins Diversity Scholarship. The $10,000 award is given to second-year law students intending to practice in a global law firm. It also recognizes students’ successes at overcoming obstacles or challenges faced in pursuing the legal profession.

Hailey Crowel '06 of Lahaina, Hawaii, Shana Khader '05 of Los Angeles, Becca Shellock '06 of Whitehall, Pa., and Rachel Yamakawa '06 of Honolulu, have been awarded Fulbright Scholarships to study abroad. The quartet are the ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th Occidental students to win the award since 2003. Crowel will study in Japan, Khader in Argentina, and Shellock and Yamakawa will travel to Austria and South Korea, respectively.

Emily Rasmussen '07, a diplomacy and world affairs major from Reno, has won a $10,000 Donald A. Strauss Public Service Scholarship to create a music education course for children at Garvanza Elementary School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Strauss Scholarships are awarded annually to at least 14 college juniors in California.

Ella Hushagen '04 of Los Angeles has won a $35,000 Villers Fellowship for Health Care Justice to learn about health care justice issues ranging from Medicaid policy, the crisis of the uninsured, Medicare, the private health insurance market, and racial disparities in health care. Hushagen will spend a year working in the Washington, D.C., foundation offices of Families USA.

Tiffany Ellis '03 has been awarded a Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship that will allow her to pursue a master's degree in visual anthropology at Oxford University. Ellis, of Brooklyn, N.Y., was one of 77 winners. The graduate scholarships cover tution, room, board, fees and books - as much as $50,000 annually - for up to six years.