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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many scholarship programs switched to a completely virtual format during the 2020-2021 cycle for the first time in history. Despite the challenges of navigating an unfamiliar scholarship environment, several members of the class of 2021 won prestigious scholarships to pursue graduate studies.
Two Yale seniors, Brian Reyes ‘21 and Alondra Vázquez López ’21 were named Rhodes Scholars. They are among 32 Americans that will pursue two or three years of fully-funded study at the University of Oxford.
Reyes is a first-generation American and first-generation college student who majored in history. He plans to pursue a Master of Science degree in comparative social policy at Oxford. He is specifically interested in racial and economic inequality and plans to study welfare states and their lessons. At Yale, Reyes was heavily involved in La Casa Cultural and was the co-president of the Dominican Students Association.
Vázquez López, a first-generation American whose parents immigrated from Mexico and Guatemala, majored in ethnicity, race, and migration. She has been an active advocate for undocumented migrants, working directly for asylum clients in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, and also studied Arabic in Morocco. At Oxford, she will pursue Master of Science degrees in migration studies and in refugee and forced migration studies.
“I honestly did not ever in a million years expect this,” Vázquez López said. “Just for all of the other first generation, low income students of color — you can do it. This is far beyond anything I could have ever thought was possible, and hopefully others can follow.”
Two Yale seniors are also among 154 students from around the world who will pursue a master’s degree in global affairs at Tsinghua University in China as Schwarzman Scholars.
Trent Kannegieter ’21 majored in history and was also involved with Yale’s Multidisciplinary Academic Program in Human Rights and the Brady-Johnson Program on Grand Strategy. His research interests focus on forces like global industry and new technologies that undermine state sovereignty. In the future, Kannegieter hopes to work on addressing threats such as transnational technology.
Milan Vivanco ’21 majored in ethics, politics and economics and was the president of the Yale Political Union, while also working as a research assistant for former Secretary of State John Kerry. He is interested in learning about cooperation between the United States and China regarding climate change and economic development efforts.
10 other Yale seniors have also been awarded fellowships to pursue further study at Oxford or Cambridge University. These awardees consist of four Paul Mellon Fellowship winners, two Henry Fellowship winners, one King’s-Yale Fellowship winner, a Rotary Global Grant and Oxford Nuffield Department of Population Health graduation scholarship awardee, a Clarendon Fund Scholarship and Oxford-Patrick Duncan Graduate Scholarship awardee and a Mica and Ahmet Ertegun Graduate Scholarship awardee.
One of the Paul Mellon fellowships awardees is Antoinette Roberts ’21 who will be pursuing a Masters of Philosophy in the history of art at Cambridge University. At Yale, Roberts majored in both African American studies and the history of art. She also worked as a Saybrook College aide, a volunteer tutor at New Haven Reads, a Goodyear Intern at the Yale University Art Gallery and as the head guide of the Yale Center for British Art’s student guide program. She hopes to work as a curator at an art museum in the future.
This year, Yale was also a top producer of Fulbright students, ranking fifth among research institutions according to the U.S Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs report. The Fulbright Program is an international exchange program operated by the U.S government that supports travel to over 140 countries to study, research or teach English.
Some aspects of the Fulbright program changed during the 2020-2021 cycle due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some countries delayed the start of Fulbright grants until the spring of 2021, some allowing deferrals until the fall of 2021 and others cancelled the programs altogether.
“2020-2021 was certainly a difficult year to try to embark on research, study, or teaching abroad,” Senior Associate Director of Fellowships Lindsay Lawton wrote in an email to the News. “Each country has had a different response to the pandemic, so each grant has also had a different outcome.”
Nevertheless, 32 Yale students and alumni were offered awards in the most recent cycle. Some received English teaching assistantships in countries such as Indonesia, Cyprus and Germany. Others crafted successful research project proposals ranging from photography in Iceland to climate resilience research in India.
Nearly 100 Yale students and alumni have won the Fulbright award in the past five years.