GAMBIER — Seven Kenyon graduates have been awarded prestigious Fulbright fellowships, continuing the College’s legacy of success with the international academic exchange program.
Kenyon has long been a liberal arts leader in producing Fulbright scholars, and earlier this year it was recognized for the number of applicants it had selected for the 2024-25 student scholar program.
Kenyon has received the “top producer” designation 18 times in the past 20 years.
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, provides funding for students and young professionals seeking graduate study, advanced research and teaching opportunities worldwide.
Recipients of the coveted fellowship receive grants to serve as English teaching assistants (ETAs) or conduct research abroad.
This year’s recipients from the College are:
- Keller Bueneman ’25, a neuroscience major from Galena, Ohio. He received a grant to conduct research in Vietnam.
- Zoe Grayer ’25, an art history major from New Jersey with a minor in Italian and history. She will teach English in Italy.
- Kate Haydel-Brown ’25, a double major in Spanish and English with an emphasis in creative writing who is from Columbus. She will teach English in Spain.
- Halle Preneta ’25, an English major and studio art minor from Cleveland. She will teach English in Botswana.
- Jackelyn Gali Samandas ’25, a double major in psychology and Russian language and culture, who is from the Chicago area. She will teach English in Kazakhstan.
- Anja Trierweiler ’25, a Chinese major and German minor who is from the Washington D.C., area. She will teach English in Taiwan.
- Guagui Vallejos ’25, a double major in international studies and Spanish who is from Florida. She will teach English in Spain.
This year’s winners from Kenyon College bring a host of practical skills, diverse interests and leadership qualities to their posts.
While at Kenyon, Bueneman was part of K-STEM peer mentoring, First-Generation Low Income Group (FiGLI), and tennis club, and he served as a Russian teaching assistant and part of Professor of Biology Wade Powell’s research lab.
In Vietnam, he will be involved in public health research investigating how Western fast food consumption and socioeconomic factors intersect to influence cancer risk.
He sees his upcoming work as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“It’s a pretty big jump from anything I’ve done before, but I’m enticed by the challenge,” Bueneman said. “I expect this year to be super transformative as I live in a totally different place and continue learning the language.”
Grayer, who looks forward to teaching in southern Italy, was part of the Archon Society at Kenyon and volunteered at Wiggin Street Elementary.
Haydel-Brown will work in the writing center at IT University in Madrid. She was part of the rugby club at Kenyon and served on campus as a Spanish language teaching assistant, an admissions intern and a bartender at the student-run bar Flats.
She previously spent a semester abroad in Chile.
Preneta was part of the Kenyon Review Associates program and looks forward to how the fellowship teaching English in Africa will inform her professional career path.
“I am really hoping it’ll add to my experience in a positive way and help guide me in my journey to become a children’s librarian after Kenyon,” she said.
“Through teaching language, I hope to bring a positive influence to the lives of children in Botswana.”
Samandas, whose parents are from Ukraine and Belarus, helped found the Eastern European Club at Kenyon and was part of the Ransom Notes a capella group and FiGLI.
She studied abroad in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, and aims to continue some of her previous work there.
“To whatever capacity I can, I plan on continuing my investigation into mental health services and beliefs about mental health in Qazaqstan,” she said in an email, using the spelling adopted by the country after switching from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin one.
“I hope to get in contact with local professionals, individuals with lived experiences, and facilitate discussions about mental health with those I’ll be getting to know through my ETA duties.”
Trierweiler grew up in Alabama and is looking forward to returning to Taiwan, where she studied abroad as a junior.
At Kenyon, she was vice president of Multicultural Identities Organization (MIO) and a member of Kenyon Asian Identities.
She worked in admissions and the bookstore and served as a Chinese teaching assistant and tutor.
Vallejos, whose family is from Chile, was co-president of Adelante — the College’s Latine student organization — and student co-manager of the Snowden Multicultural Center.
She served as co-vice president of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility for Student Council and was a senior admissions fellow.
While in Galicia, Spain, Vallejos looks forward to connecting with its people and history.
“I hope that I am able to share my life experiences of being multicultural (Floridian and Chilean) with the students in Spain,” she said.
“I am also excited to be in some ways returning to the motherland, as my ancestors once left Spain to go to Chile.”