Four Dickinson students have received Fulbright Fellowships to Germany. On Monday, February 18, seniors Anna Leistikow, Jane Feldmann, Eric Neumeister and Olivia Wilkins received emails from the Institution of International Education stating that they had been chosen for the Fellowship.

Leistikow, Feldmann and Neumeister will be placed as English Teaching Assistants, said Feldmann. “I will be an English Teaching Assistant Scholar in Germany, where I will be placed in a German high school to teach English language and culture.” Wilkins, however, was given the U.S. Student Program Academic Grant. “I plan to do astrochemistry research. Specifically, I’m hoping to compile information about complex organic molecules in cold environments (30 Kelvin) at frequencies for which there isn’t a lot of information currently. This information would then be used by astronomers and other astrochemists to identify unknown species in galactic molecular clouds,” said Wilkins. She added, “One thing that I think is pretty cool about what I’m going to be doing is that, last summer, I was at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics using information from the Cologne Database for Molecular Spectroscopy. In Germany, I will be on the other side of the database at the University of Cologne, putting information into–rather than getting information from–the database. It will be pretty cool to see both angles of the research.”

Both Wilkins and Feldmann noted that their Dickinson experience helped them succeed. “I couldn’t have done it without the professors who helped me. Sarah McGaughey and Wendy Moffat encouraged me to apply in the first place and then guided me through the process of writing, which began may 2014 when I was still abroad in Bremen,” said Feldmann. She elaborated, “Over the summer I worked on several drafts of the application in order to prepare it for the October submission so just having that support along the way was crucial to the process itself.”

Wilkins echoed Feldmann saying, “Dickinson definitely prepared me for this. Most of my professors didn’t even know astrochemistry was a thing until I did some summer research in the field, but they had given me the tools–in true liberal arts fashion–to use what I had learned however I wanted.” She continued, “I’ve never taken astronomy, but I’ve done two summers of astronomy research. Dickinson has shown me the importance of being creative and asking good questions, two things I will definitely need in Germany.”

When asked what advice she would give students looking to apply for the fellowship, Feldmann said, “I would say be prepared to give it your all, to really work hard on it, so no matter what result you get you’ll have something to be proud of. Because whether or not you win the award the process is really fulfilling because you learn to express what you’re really passionate about and that will remain even if you don’t get the award.”