The International Institute recently announced that seven U-M students have been awarded a prestigious U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship.

The Fulbright-Hays Program provides grants to colleges and universities to fund individual doctoral students who wish to conduct research abroad for periods of six to 12 months. The highly competitive program is designed to foster U.S. competence and expertise in foreign languages and area or international studies. Award amounts for the U-M grantees totaled nearly $300,000.

“Our applicants’ success is due to their excellent academic records, proposal of meaningful and important projects, and demonstration of outstanding promise as scholars in their fields,” says Kelly Peckens, lead Fulbright Program adviser at the International Institute. “In addition, the staff member who advises applicants has 30 years of experience with this fellowship.”

At U-M the Fulbright-Hays Fellowship is administered by the International Institute, where dedicated staff members are available to advise students and faculty regarding fellowship opportunities in any of the Fulbright Program’s 11 grant categories.

“The advice provided by the International Institute staff was integral to my selection for this grant,” says Elana Resnick, a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology. “From the start, I received a tremendous amount of help, support, and encouragement in drafting my proposal.”

The 2010-2011 U-M Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grantees, the countries where they will be studying, and their projects include:

• Tara D. Diener, LSA (history and anthropology), Sierra Leone and United Kingdom; “Starched Caps and Childbirth in a Creole City: An Ethnographic History of Maternity Care in Freetown”

• Nicolas Emlen, LSA (linguistic anthropology), Peru; “Language Contact at the Andes-Amazon Borderland”

• Krista Goff, LSA (history), Azerbaijan; “What Makes a People? National Minorities and Soviet Structures, 1953-1968”

• Jack Merchant, LSA (history), Vietnam; “Unbounded Time: The New Poets, Movement, and Language in 1930s Viet Nam”

• Elana Resnick, LSA (anthropology), Bulgaria; “Waste, Work and Racialization in Bulgaria”

• Tasha Rijke-Epstein, LSA (history and anthropology), Madagascar; “The Road to Mahajanga: Mapping Socio-Political Geographies in Madagascar”

• Rufin Saul, LSA (religious studies), India; “When a Local God Goes Translocal: The Modern Making of Balaji.”

For further information about the fellowship, go to www.ii.umich.edu/funding/gradstud.