Four University of Oklahoma students have been named as recipients of Fulbright Grants:

• Jacob “Jake” Rupert of Oklahoma City, an Honors student who is graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa this spring with a bachelor of arts degree in European studies and a minor in German, will study wind energy policy in the United States and Germany under a research fellowship in Berlin.
• Kimberlee Davies of Tulsa, an Honors student who is graduating magna cum laude this spring with dual degrees in international studies and interdisciplinary perspectives on the environment, will conduct research involving agriculture in the Republic of Malawi in southeast Africa.
• Kara Underwood of Tulsa, an Honors student graduating cum laude this spring with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and a minor in history, will serve in an English teaching assistantship in Malaysia.
• Alexander Anand of Oxnard, Calif., an Honors student who is earning dual degrees in Russian and East European studies this spring, will serve in an English teaching assistantship in Russia.

“Each of these students were successful in winning a Fulbright grant because of the hard work they put into their applications and their academic success during their studies at the University of Oklahoma,” said Karl Rambo, OU associate professor of anthropology in Arts and Sciences and the university’s faculty Fulbright liaison. “The Fulbright program attracts some of the best prepared and smartest graduating seniors and graduate students in the nation. That the students from OU have consistently had success in getting Fulbright grants to do research and teach overseas is a testament to their abilities and the increasingly international focus of the university. These students will return to the United States with experiences and skills that will have a long-term impact on their lives and careers.”

Rupert will attend classes at the Free University of Berlin and implement a research project, titled “A Comparative Study of U.S. and German Wind Energy Policy,” in affiliation with Johann Koeppel at the Berlin University of Technology. The goal of the project is to assess the efficacy of the law’s decreasing subsidy scheme, which is intended to promote growth in wind industry production and improve cost-parity with conventional energy sources. To complete his project, Rupert will perform research in legal archives and conduct field interviews with federal administrators and wind turbine entrepreneurs.

At OU, Rupert has competed on the Shannon Self Debate Team and served as a vice president and team leader for The Oklahoma Group, an OU student-led consulting organization that provides pro bono services to nonprofits in central Okahoma. Rupert also has been designated an International Studies Leadership Scholar and a Carl Albert Congressional Research Fellow. Upon completion of his project, Rupert said he plans to pursue a law degree with specializations in international and environmental law and would like to pursue a career in Oklahoma or Texas in the renewable energy industry as a contract lawyer.

While in Malawi, which has one of the lowest per capita Gross Domestic Products in the world, Davies will conduct interviews of small-scale farmers to determine the main barriers in accessing hybrid seeds, which can greatly increase harvest yields, and the best ways to navigate these barriers. Publication of the research and distribution of the results will be sent to Malawian nongovernmental organizations.

An Oklahoma Regents Scholar, Davies also has received other awards and scholarships while at OU, including designation as the Outstanding Arts and Sciences Senior in the Humanities. She has served internships, including one in 2010 with the U.S. Department of State. Upon returning to the United States, she plans to apply to Princeton in Africa, an independent affiliate of Princeton University that seeks to develop young leaders committed to Africa’s advancement, and to the Farmer-to-Farmer fellowship program through CNFA, a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization dedicated to stimulating economic growth around the world by nurturing entrepreneurship, private enterprise and market linkages. She later plans to pursue a master’s degree in international development with a focus on sustainability in Africa.

Underwood will travel to Malaysia, where she will spend 10 months teaching high school students conversational English as well as providing them with a first-hand cultural knowledge of the United States.
At OU, she has received an International Student Scholarship, a Creek Nation Academic Scholarship, and the Oklahoma Foreign Language Teachers’ Association Nancy Boles Scholarship. In addition to her studies, Underwood works in the Education Department and Entomology Lab at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, is a music instructor for high school students, and is a French tutor. Her plans after graduation include going to graduate school to study either linguistics or biological anthropology and to continue to travel internationally.

Anand, who is a National Merit Scholar and participated in a study abroad program his junior year in Russia, has been assigned to teach for a year beginning in September at the Bashkir State Academy of Public Affairs and Management under the President of the Republic of Bashkortostan in Ufa, the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan. (Bashkortostan is a semi-autonomous republic in the east of European Russia next to the Ural Mountains.)
Anand plans to pursue a doctorate in the history of science after completing the Fulbright program. He said he would ultimately like to pursue a career either in the U.S. Foreign Service or as a teacher of Russian or English at the high school or college level.

Students were chosen for the Fulbright Grants after a national competition among more than 6,000 applicants. The Fulbright Student Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, supports students for up to a year of research, coursework or teaching practicum in more than 155 countries around the world. It is designed to give recent graduates, graduate students and young professionals international experience.

The U.S. Congress created the Fulbright Program in 1946, immediately after World War II, to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Today the Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s premier scholarship program. Fulbright Grants are available to students studying most subjects in the sciences, humanities, social sciences and in professional programs.