May 27, 2009

Contact:
Liz Babiarz , 404-413-1356
University Relations

Three recent GSU grads receive Fulbright grants

ATLANTA — Three recent Georgia State University graduates are recipients of Fulbright grants and will travel abroad this fall to pursue their research interests.

Tyler Owens will direct Shakespearean theater in the United Kingdom, Yasmin Rahmani will conduct medical research in Spain and Sydney Lanier will study language and literature at Queens University, Belfast.

This is the second consecutive year three GSU students have received Fulbright awards.

 “This is one of the most competitive and prestigious scholarship programs for international study,” said Farrah Bernardino, director of Study Abroad Programs at GSU. “These students succeeded in distinguishing themselves from a highly selective pool of applicants across the country and deserve to be recognized for receiving this very high honor.”

Georgia State ranks third, tying with Drexel University, among institutions in the Colonial Academic Alliance for the amount of student Fulbright awards granted since 2004, Bernardino said.

The Fulbright Program is the largest U.S. international exchange program offering opportunities for students, scholars and professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching and teaching in elementary and secondary schools worldwide. Approximately 1,500 U.S. students and 3,000 foreign students receive Fulbright scholarships each year.

Owens, 34, enrolled at GSU in the spring of 2007 and graduated last August cum laude with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Film. He’s currently pursuing his master’s degree in the arts and will attend the University of Exeter for its program in staging Shakespeare.

 “I'm very thankful for Georgia State,” Owens said.  “Georgia State certainly gave me a solid platform from which to pursue my dream of studying in the UK.”

Rahmani, 22, a native of Iran, graduated on May 9 with her bachelor’s in chemistry and will be leaving on Sept. 15 for Valencia, Spain. Rahmani says she will spend 10 months studying neuroscience in the Laboratory of Neural Regeneration at the Institute of Biomedicine, a goal she couldn’t have reached without Georgia State.

 “GSU helped in many ways, by giving me a challenging curriculum, dedicated teachers who pushed me to succeed and the study abroad program sponsored by GSU that introduced me to Spain in the summer of junior year,” Rahmani said.

Lanier, 23, a Georgia native, graduated with a master’s degree in English on May 9. She will be leaving in September to study for her doctorate in literature at Queen's University Belfast, as a student of the Irish Studies Department. 

“I knew that the best way to learn about a culture is to experience it firsthand, and, through the Fulbright, I’m fortunate enough to be able to do so,” Lanier said.