FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS
Rice undergraduates Rachael Petersen and Becky Wade are among 40 graduating seniors from around the country awarded a 2012 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Each will receive $25,000 for 12 months of world travel and experiential learning to study a topic of their choice.
Petersen and Wade were chosen from 147 finalists nominated by select private colleges and universities from more than 700 candidates for the fellowship, which is given to exceptional college seniors.
Rice senior Dylan McNally has been awarded the Roy and Hazel Zeff Memorial Fellowship, a $25,000 grant for the same type of study funded by the Watson Fellowship. The Zeff Fellowship is awarded to the Rice student who is ranked highest by the Rice Committee on Scholarships and Awards for a Watson Fellowship but does not receive that award.
“Rice is extremely fortunate to be one of only 40 schools eligible to nominate students for the Watson Fellowship,” said Caroline Quenemoen, director of fellowships and undergraduate research. “The Watson award offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for both personal and intellectual growth. Over the next year, Rice’s winners will find themselves exhilarated and challenged as they encounter a host of new experiences in pursuit of their passions around the globe. The Faculty Committee on Fellowships and Awards and I are particularly grateful to Professor Steven Zeff for providing the Roy and Hazel Zeff Fellowship for the highest-ranking nominee from Rice who does not receive a Watson Fellowship.”
Rachael Petersen
Petersen, a member of McMurtry College from Temple, Texas, is majoring in both anthropology and public policy and minoring in poverty, justice and human capabilities.She plans to use the Watson Fellowship to study how indigenous communities are harnessing digital tools to assert their cultural identity and sovereignty around the world.
Although indigenous peoples are often portrayed as “primitive tribes” stuck in the past, these images are based on “misguided assumptions,” Petersen said. “Indigenous peoples are now seeking to bridge the digital divide on their own terms by implementing technological initiatives within their communities.”
Petersen will spend about 10 weeks each in Canada, Ecuador, Brazil, Malaysia and Australia to get a broad overview of different indigenous groups – the Inuit, Surui, Schuar, the Kelabit and Aboriginal groups of the Australian outback. “I want my journey to reflect the unique experiences of different native peoples around the world,” Petersen said. “I also aimed to capture a range of technology usages, from social media to GIS technology, AV and radio broadcasts, in order to better understand the variety of ways technology is being harnessed by the Fourth World.”
Petersen first interacted with indigenous peoples the summer after her freshman year with a Loewenstern International Service Fellowship in Peru. In December 2009, she was a Rice delegate to the COP15 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, where she focused on indigenous participation in the negotiations. She has also been involved with indigenous issues as a summer intern with the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington, D.C. (supported by Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy) and while studying abroad in Guatemala for a semester. Petersen also qualified for the highly prestigious Fulbright grant to do research in Germany, but she opted to receive the Watson Fellowship.
Petersen has served as a research assistant for a National Science Foundation-funded project that focused on the social impact of wind energy development in rural Oaxaca, Mexico. She splits her time volunteering as a Spanish interpreter in Houston’s Ben Taub General Hospital and directing the Rice Women’s Resource Center.
Becky Wade
Wade, a member of Martel College from Dallas, is majoring in history, psychology and sociology. She plans to use the Watson Fellowship to study the long-distance running cultures in five countries with unique and storied running histories: United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Japan, New Zealand and Finland.
“Track and field is the most global of all sports,” said Wade, a U.S. Junior National Champion and NCAA Division I All-American in track and field. “It transcends national, demographic and socioeconomic boundaries and attracts representatives from more countries to its major competitions than any other sport.” Wade said her desire to explore running cultures around the world began when she raced in the 2008 World Junior Track Championship in Poland. “During that trip, I befriended competitors from other countries and grew deeply curious about their unique living and training conditions,” she said.
“My ultimate objective is to construct an encompassing and comparative view of these diverse environments as I investigate the role of running on an individual, societal and global scale,” Wade said. By interviewing athletes, coaches and spectators and running on popular trails and competing in races, Wade hopes to learn more about the history, recreational running, elite training and social attitudes of the running culture in the countries where she will live for two to three months each.
Wade runs 80 miles a week while maintaining a 4.0 grade point average at Rice. As a sociology research assistant at Rice and the University of Texas, Wade has submitted two papers for publication. She serves as a student ambassador and tutor and volunteers in the Houston community.
Dylan McNally
McNally, a member of Martel College from Johns Creek, Ga., is majoring in Hispanic studies and political science (concentrating on international relations). He will use the Zeff Fellowship to gain a comparative and broad view of the education of children of migrants in different parts of the world. McNally intends to focus on two key aspects of the migration phenomenon: the movement of people from the periphery to the core on an international level, and the segregation of these migrant communities within the host country.
“My trip includes Costa Rica, Spain, South Africa, Jordan and Singapore so I can get a really comprehensive view of various education systems and how they address immigrants from a wide range of diasporas,” he said. He plans to spend 10 to 11 weeks in each country, where he hopes to build relationships with teachers, students, community leaders, policymakers and social workers to better understand the complex “immigrant education” problem there.
Through the Leadership Rice Summer Mentorship Experience, McNally has worked in the Office of International Relations at the National Migration Institute in Mexico City. He said a project there concerning children and their hardships as migrants really sparked his interest in migration policy, including Mexico’s relations with Central American countries as well as with the U.S. “Many of these kids lack access to a stable education, both in Mexico and the United States, and because I’ve tutored immigrant students in Houston, this issue really struck me,” he said. The Gateway Program through Rice’s School of Social Sciences funded an internship for McNally at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C., where he researched recent state immigration laws.
At Rice, McNally has served in student government, participated in peer tutoring and worked as a humanities research fellow.
The Watson Fellowship Program is a major activity of the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, which was created in 1961 as a charitable trust by Mrs. Thomas Watson Sr. in honor of her late husband, the founder of IBM (International Business Machines. The Watsons had a long-standing interest in education and world affairs.
The Zeff Fellowship was established by Stephen Zeff, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Accounting at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, in honor of his parents.
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