Four Jackson affiliates win Fulbright awards

Four Jackson School affiliates are among more than two dozen recent alumni from Yale who have been offered Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards from the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

In partnership with more than 140 countries worldwide, the program enables graduating college seniors, graduate students, or young professionals to pursue graduate study, research, or teach English abroad. Recipients are selected based on academic and professional achievement, as well as their record of service and leadership potential in their respective fields.

Yale has long been a top producer of U.S. student Fulbright awardees, with more than 80 Yale students or alumni winning the prestigious honor in the past four years alone.

Chase Daneker ’24, who majored in global affairs with an advanced language certificate in Spanish, received a Fulbright-Garcia Robles Grant and will participate in the Fulbright Binational Business Program in Mexico. At Yale, he received the Thomas C. Barry Travel Fellowship, which supported his independent research on collective memory formation following the Peruvian internal conflict from 1980 to 2000. Daneker also received the O’Leary Cepeda and Leitner International Fellowships at Yale, which supported his work for CEDRO, a Peruvian NGO implementing alternative development projects in the Amazon.

Sandhya Kumar BA ’23 MPH ’24 majored in global affairs and recently completed the accelerated five-year BA/MPH program at the Yale School of Public Health. On campus, she has volunteered with the Neighborhood Health Project in New Haven, led a summer high school program with the Yale International Relations Association, danced with the Yale Rangeela Bollywood fusion dance team, and was co-president of the South Asian Society. She will continue exploring topics in global health in Mumbai, India, during her Fulbright year.

Francesca Nyakora ’23, who took part in the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and Kerry Fellows program, earned a Fulbright to study in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is currently completing a junior fellowship with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. At Yale, Nyakora studied political science and African studies while also receiving certificates in French and human rights. She also served as the president of the inaugural Yale Model African Union and on the board of the Yale International Relations Association, and interned at the U.S. State Department and the United Nations Development Program.

As the recipient of a Fulbright France Study Award, Fiona O’Brien ’22 will pursue her Master of Science and Technology in Smart Cities and Climate Policy at École Polytechnique. At Yale, she earned a B.S. in environmental engineering and a certificate in French while also participating in the Global Health Studies Program at Jackson. O’Brien supported several volunteer organizations through the GHS program, including Engineers Without Borders and Community Health Educators.

Learn more about the other Yale Fulbright awardees in Yale News