Awardee Database

Awardees

Valentyna Pashkova

As a 20-year veteran of Embassy Kyiv’s Public Diplomacy Section, Valentyna Pashkova exemplifies the highest standards of creativity, passion, and commitment to cultural and educational diplomacy. As the American Spaces Program Specialist, she has been instrumental in developing and sustaining the network of 26 American centers, shelves, and spaces across Ukraine that are a model for other Eastern European countries. Valentyna’s long career at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv has been marked by unyielding creativity and steadfast commitment, benefiting both U.S. direct hires and local staff. Her embodiment of cross-cultural sensitivity, patience, wisdom, generosity, and humanity make her an exemplary recipient of the Jodie Lewinsohn Career Achievement Award.

Claire With

As the Resource Coordinator, U.S. Embassy Oslo, Claire was instrumental in the October 2023 opening of the American Presence Post in Tromso, Norway, based on her years of experience understanding the most effective ways to engage the disparate communities of the Arctic. Over Claire’s long career she has continuously demonstrated her commitment to the development of cultural understanding between the two countries. 

Counselor for Public Affairs Jillian F. Bonnardeaux, Claire’s nominator, commends her role as the senior-most member of the Public Diplomacy Section as the indispensable institutional memory for the hundreds of grantees and cultural programs over the decades.

Shahla Ujayli & Michelle Hartman

Shahla Ujayli is a Syrian-born writer and professor of Modern Arabic Literature at the University of Aleppo and the American University in Jordan. She has written 2 short-story collections and 4 novels, with Summer with the Enemy and A Sky So Close to Us receiving a shortlist for the IPAF. Shahla and her translator, Michelle Hartman, toured college and universities in the Northeastern U.S. On each leg of the tour, they read from the novels in both Arabic and English and discussed the promise of literary translation.

A Sky So Close to Us is an intergenerational tale of trauma, identity, love and loss; a sweeping historical  narrative that focuses on the life of Jourmane, a humanitarian aid worker in Jordan, as she battles cancer and navigates her separation from her sisters in war-torn Syria. Summer with the Enemy contests the idea of a remote and removed Raqqa, as it positions the ancient city at the heart of the 3 generations of women the novel follows. Lamis, her mother Najwa, and grandmother Karma’s lives, relationships and social worlds are displayed through multiple times and spaces, both inside and outside of Raqqa.

Rahaf AlZuraiqi

The 2024 award went to Rahaf AlZuraiqi, Public Engagement Specialist, U.S. Mission to Yemen.

We could not express better Rahaf AlZuraiqi’s accomplishments and service to both the United States and Yemen than what Public Affairs Officer Jennifer Sutton writes: Rahaf AlZuraiqi has spent years overcoming war, displacement, terrorist threats, financial and administrative challenges to build a legacy of strong cultural programs in Yemen. That the post receives hundreds of applications to participate in its programs annually despite intimidation and disinformation about the United States, even recently, goes to show how Rahaf’s work has laid a firm foundation for exchanges and English-language programs to continue in ROYG-controlled areas of Yemen. Her empathy and advocacy for participants and alumni in the face of the recent crisis are a testament to her character and make Rahaf an outstanding advocate in this very difficult operating environment.

Rasa Baukuviene

Rasa Baukuviene joined the Public Diplomacy Section of the U.S. Embassy Vilnius in 1994, just four years after Lithuania regained independence from the Soviet Union. As U.S.-Lithuania exchange programs rapidly expanded in the late 1990s and 2000s, Rasa worked tirelessly to build an institutional framework to make these programs sustainable, impactful, and appealing to Lithuanian applicants. In the words of one colleague, Rasa is “the mother of all U.S.-Lithuania academic and professional exchanges.”

In her 30-year career at the Embassy, she enabled over 1,500 Lithuanians to visit the U.S. on exchanges, in addition to helping hundreds of Americans visit Lithuania on academic or professional programs. Rasa single-handedly used exchanges to help Lithuania navigate a post-Soviet future, entrance into the EU and NATO, and growth as one of Europe’s youngest democracies.

Marzia Benini

Over the past 43 years Marzia Benini, Public Engagement Specialist, U.S. Embassy Rome, has advanced U.S. foreign policy in Italy, helping strengthen the relationship and reinforce shared democratic values. Her creativity and dedication engaged new audiences and strengthened established contacts in think tanks, labor unions, professional associations, civil society organizations, and academia. With each new policy challenge, she has brought energy, enthusiasm, and intellectual curiosity. Her innovative thinking, leadership, and guidance in identifying new audiences and deepening relationships have created prototypes for future long-term, issue-focused programs.

Ana Paula Ferreira

Ana Paula Ferreira is the Public Engagement Specialist, U.S. Embassy Luanda.

Public Diplomacy Officer Benjamin Stevenson, in nominating Ana, remarked on her unwavering dedication and exceptional contributions to fostering cultural exchange and understanding between the United States and Angola. Over her 25-year career in Angola, Ana used her encyclopedic knowledge of Angolan cultural history to forge strong connections with high-level cultural institutions, arrange collaborations between American and Angolan artists and modernize Angolan museums. Her contributions have had a profound and lasting impact on the cultural relations between the United States and Angola.

Eric Benninghoff

Eric is working on his multicultural video project on the transition from school to employment for people with developmental disabilities such as autism. Eric graduated from Yale with a BA in Political Science in 2020. Upon return to the United States, he plans to continue in video journalism, with a focus on telling the stories of individuals with disabilities, and other often overlooked populations.

Michael Monzon

Michael Monzon is currently working on his PhD in Entomology at Rutgers. His Fulbright research is focused on the application of Insect Science to Archaeology. The Sweden Project Support Award will support expanding the scope of his original Fulbright project beyond archaeological entomology to incorporate lithic analysis of stone tools produced in northern Sweden, an underserved area of Swedish archaeology. He plans for his research to be published as an article in the peer-reviewed Journal of Open Archaeology Data.

Max Frankel

Although his Fulbright research is focused on Capturing Neuroscience on the Nanoscale, Max will use the Sweden Project Support Award to support an exchange between artists at the Royal Institute of Art and scientists at SciLifeLab that will result in an exhibition “Scientific Research through an Artist’s Lens”. After completing his Fulbright research, he plans to pursue a PhD in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics, focused on the interactions between atoms and light and the practical application to new technology. He is particularly interested in studying Bose-Einstein Condensate, a state of matter where atoms behave more like waves than particles. He hopes one day to run his own experimental physics lab.

Timothy Sowa

Timothy Sowa was selected for his project on Sustainable Digital Education. He will use the award to travel and expand his engagement with Finnish educators, researchers and students on how social sciences and technology can work together to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. He is currently working on his Master’s degree in Social Science with the Sustainable Digital Life program at Tampere University. He intends to return to the United States to work as an education technology consultant and help schools build ethical and sustainable digital platforms.

Irina Wang

Irina Wang was selected for her project on Visualizing Indigenous Perspectives on Arctic Climate Change. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, she will use the award to develop gameplay materials to facilitate conversations with and among herders on the impact of climate change on reindeer husbandry in collaboration with colleagues from CHARTER (Drivers and Feedbacks of Changes in Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity), a research project focused on the processes driving rapid climate and land use changes in the Arctic. Upon returning to the United States, she intends to establish a design studio and apply her skills to the development and implementation of equitable climate policy.

Emily Kuhn

Emily Kuhn will use this award to support her project, Understanding Kichwa Agroecology as an Intergenerational Pedagogy. She will work with linguists, Kichwa ethno-scientists, sound engineers and graphic designers to create audiovisual materials for students and educators to promote the transfer of ancestral ecological knowledge to support sustainable agricultural practices. She earned her BA in Environmental Sociology and Spanish from Pitzer College in California. Upon returning to the United States, she plans to continue her work in sustainable management of the land among indigenous communities.

Kristina Nielsen

Kristina Nielsen was selected as a recipient for the 2023 Denmark Project Support Award. She will conduct postdoctoral research at Roskilde University on “Globalization without Multiculturalism?: Paradoxes of Danishness and Danish Children’s Music.” Utilizing ethnographic fieldwork, musical analysis, and archival research, Dr. Nielsen plans to examine how state-produced Danish children’s music responds to the paradoxes of belonging in Denmark – such as how children’s music embraces a globalized sound while emphasizing monoculturalism and integration. Dr. Nielsen’s project seeks to understand this paradox in light of Denmark’s growing multiculturalism as she examines the myths of Scandinavian homogeneity within the growing field of Scandinavian post-colonial studies. Dr. Nielsen earned a PhD in Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2017, and she is currently Assistant Professor of Musicology at Southern Methodist University.

Rebecca Hawkes

Rebecca, a published poet, is currently pursuing her Master’s of Fine Art in Poetry at the University of Michigan. She intends to turn her book-length creative thesis into her second full-length book of poetry to be published both in New Zealand and the US.

Her first book, Meat Lovers, was a collection of poems on food, farming, and queer romantic folly. The new collection will most likely focus on climate change, food systems, environmentalism, as well as expressions of love and care in times of crisis – what she calls queerness and ecology.

After completing the MFA, Rebecca plans to return to New Zealand with newfound teaching skills that will not be limited to academic classrooms, but enable her to better connect with non-poets. She wants to run workshops that bring together poets and environmentalists, and introduce more scientists and laypeople to poetry as a way to express themselves and strengthen communities.

Dr. Kayln McDonough

Dr. Kayln McDonough is a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Melbourne and an advocate for social justice through sport, particularly for youth and using sport to strengthen communities. Her home institution is University of Delaware’s College of Health Sciences’ Partnership for Healthy Communities.

She is applying post doctoral research to sport programming she is leading at a youth detention center in partnership with the Queensland Department of Children, Youth Justice, and Multicultural Affairs, the National Indigenous Sports Foundation (NISF), Confederation of Australian Sport (CAS) and Lacrosse Australia. The objective is to increase access to physical activity, specifically lacrosse, among incarcerated youth. The collaboration of NISF and Lacrosse Australia marks a first of its kind, and can be used as a model for culturally-informed programming among other national sporting bodies.

Christienne Carroll

Christienne has applied her vision of bringing disparate peoples together and improving their chances for success during a series of assignments in the toughest PD environments. In Iraq (twice), Tunis and her current post, Christienne uses her superior foreign language, programming and grants management skills to offer a broad swath of publics carefully-crafted civic and educational programs with lasting impact.

Laurence (Larry) Socha

Three years after the restoration of U.S. diplomatic presence in Mogadishu after a nearly 30 year absence, Larry Socha is updating the U.S.-Somalia narrative popularized by Hollywood scripts now decades old to an authentic account of partnership with Somali institutions.  Larry kickstarted programs for artists, exchange participants, English Teaching Fellows, a new American Corner and events like his “Family Room Film Series,” that have opened the doors of our Embassy to Somalis living outside the security barriers of the airport and achieved that “last three feet” of people-to-people diplomacy.

Maria Eugenia (‘Jenny’) Verdaguer

Since 2007, Jenny has led a team of international exchange professionals supporting 1,700 participants per year from thirty countries. Jenny pioneered multi-country Fulbright collaborative research initiatives, including the Fulbright Regional Network for Applied Research (NEXUS) Program, and the new Fulbright Amazonia Initiative reflecting current multi-disciplinary and team-based research approaches to academic cooperation on climate change and conservation issues. In a further example of innovative leadership, Jenny introduced regional webinars for Fulbright Commissions and U.S. Embassy staff on mental health and cross-cultural adaptation strategies to strengthen structures of support and inclusion for diverse Fulbright participants. As a bicultural and bilingual Latin Americanist, herself the product of international exchange, Jenny understands first-hand the transformational power of international education, and strives to multiply and enhance Fulbright life-changing experiences across the Americas.

 

Irina Colin

Irina Colin is an Established Opinion Leaders Specialist in the U.S. Embassy in Chisinau, Moldova. Over twenty-six years, mentoring dozens of new staff, Irina has built a culture of high achievers by her example. A strategic thinker, skillful implementer and trusted colleague, Irina deciphers complexities from Moldova’s culture to the PDSI process to make her section better. Across every segment of Moldovan society there are former USG exchange participants applying their knowledge to Moldova’s challenges thanks to Irina Colin’s years of dedicated service.

Josita Ekouevi

Josita Ekouevi is a Public Engagement Specialist for Established Opinion Leaders in the U.S. Embassy in Lomé, Togo. For twenty-five years, one thousand exchange alumni have considered “Auntie Josita” part of their family for her skill in guiding them to successful exchange experiences. Membership in the self-run Global Alumni Association of Togo is viewed as prestigious and an advantage in Togo’s difficult job market. Generously sharing her expertise with colleagues in other Bureaus and in DC, Josita’s work with participants and alumni represents the highest ideals of U.S. cultural and educational exchanges.

Sami Saaied

Sami Saaied is a Strategic Public Engagement Specialist in the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia. Over more than twenty years managing PD outreach and speaker programs, Sami has used his expertise in grants management, his broad contact base and deep knowledge of the academic scene in Tunisia to bring U.S. perspectives to thought leaders and decision-makers across a wide spectrum of urgent and long-running issues, including PRC influence, business higher education, security cooperation, anti-trafficking, and DEIA. He is recognized for his lasting contributions throughout Mission Tunisia.

László Vizsy

László Vizsy is an Emerging Voices Specialist in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, Hungary. During László’s thirty-plus years of service, his innovative leadership in outreach to tens of thousands of students, management of five American Corners, interpretation skills, and supervisory skills have been instrumental in furthering cultural understanding and educational opportunities for both countries. Although the relationship has waxed and waned over the years, the overall positive impression of America in Hungary is largely the result of cultural programming led by László Vizsy.

*The Prix Coindreau Prize, The Jeanne Varnay Pleasants Prize for Language Teaching, and the CASVA-Henry & Judith Millon Award are currently inactive.