Fourteen Emory students, alumni selected as Fulbright recipients

Thirteen recent graduates of Emory College of Arts and Sciences — and one current doctoral candidate at the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies — are the university’s most recent recipients of grants through the highly competitive Fulbright U.S. Student Program. As such, they have the opportunity to teach English, study and conduct research around the world during the upcoming academic year. 

The U.S. State Department funds the country’s flagship international exchange, supporting a range of awards that include study/research grants and English teaching assistantships in more than 160 countries.

More than 2,000 students and early career professionals have received Fulbright grants since the program launched in 1946. Officials select awardees based on academic merit, ambassadorial skill and leadership potential.

Emory has earned the distinction as one of the top producers of students and alumni who receive Fulbright awards for 10 years straight. Including the latest recipients, 202 Emory students have been selected for the program.

Emory’s U.S. Fulbright research grantees for 2026-27 are:

• Charlotte Andrews, 2024 Oxford College graduate and 2026 Emory College graduate with a double major in political science and Spanish, will research forced migration and human trafficking in Guatemala to help develop early intervention strategies there and in the U.S.
• Elizabeth Brubaker, 2026 Emory College graduate with double majors in political science and women’s, gender and sexuality studies, will study how restorative justice organizations interact with the formal legal system while she pursues a master’s degree in conflict transformation and social justice in the United Kingdom as a recipient of the Fulbright/Queen's University Belfast Award. 
• Alyssa Chen, 2025 Emory College graduate in biology, will develop a prediction model for seizure duration that can be added to wearable sensors for children with epilepsy while conducting research in Germany.
• Julia Laszcz, 2024 Emory College graduate with a double major in English and neuroscience and behavioral biology, will investigate the intergenerational impact of World War II-related trauma on mental health and biological stress systems that have led to a prevalence of PTSD among adults in Poland.
• Aanya Ravichander, 2024 Oxford College graduate and 2026 Emory College graduate majoring in human health and minoring in women’s, gender and sexuality studies, will conduct research into barriers to the diagnosis and treatment of postpartum depression in India as a recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Open Study/Research Award.
• Maria Sandoval Rodriguez, 2026 Emory College graduate with a double major in psychology and Spanish/Portuguese, will explore how language barriers influence access to mental health care for Spanish-speaking families in Brazil.
• Deanna Sharpe, 2026 Emory College graduate with a double major in human health and Spanish/linguistics, will conduct research into digital violence and violence prevention while pursuing a master’s degree in forensic speech science in the United Kingdom as a recipient of the Fulbright/University of York Award.
• Eric Villalobos, a doctoral candidate in religion at Emory’s James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies, will conduct research in Rajasthan, India, as a Fulbright-Nehru Student research grant recipient. He will spend the next year examining the historical collaboration between Rajasthani kingdoms and Jain merchant communities in promoting Jain monks as medical practitioners during the colonial era.

Those selected to serve as Fulbright English Teaching Assistants in countries around the world are: 

• Lydia King, 2023 Oxford College graduate and 2025 Emory College graduate with a double major in linguistics and anthropology/human biology, Rwanda.
• Sia Kripalani, 2026 Emory College graduate in anthropology/human biology, Spain.
• Sarah Lehrich, 2026 Emory College graduate in linguistics, Vietnam.
• Jessie Satovsky, 2026 Emory College graduate in international studies, who will also serve as Fulbright Debate Coach, Taiwan.
• Jiin Woo, 2022 Emory College graduate with a double major in neuroscience and behavioral biology as well as comparative literature, South Korea.

Morgan Creighton, 2026 Emory College graduate in neuroscience and behavioral biology, declined her Fulbright offer to accept a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She will conduct some of her NSFGRFP research — investigating whether adaptive neurostimulation boosts rehabilitation and recovery in stroke patients — in Germany, with the support of her graduate program in biomedical engineering at the University of Texas-Austin.