2008 Fulbright Scholars

Congratulations to our 2008 Fulbright Award winners!

Four Pacific University undergraduates have been awarded prestigious Fulbright Scholarships in 2008: Jenifer Jennings, Evan Bredeweg, Phillip Quercia, and Sarah. Pacific’s dedication to academic excellence and close faculty-student mentoring has built a tradition of earning competitive national and international awards. We congratulate Jen, Evan, Phillip, and Sarah and all of our national award winners.

Jenifer Jennings

A double major in Exercise Science and German, plans to study a prevention strategy of ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) tears in the knees of athletes.  Balance training programs decrease landing forces, but Jen plans to study what is changing within the nervous system.  She will work in Germany with Dr. Joseph Classen at the Universität Würzburg, a renowned researcher in the field of neurology and the motor system. 

The ACL is particularly important, as it provides almost 90 percent of the stability to the knee joint. Tears usually occur during a non-contact situation: normally during a landing or a cutting motion, especially in sports such as soccer and basketball.  In Würzburg, Jen plans to implement a balance-board training program, in order to improve balance over an 8-week time frame. She will study neural activity while performing certain tasks, such as walking, sitting, and jumping.

She will take measurements both before and after balance training in order to measure if the firing and/or magnitude of the neurons changes. She hopes the results of her work can be widely applied where balance is a factor, especially with diseases such as Parkinson’s. After her fellowship year, Jennifer plans to attend a Doctor of Physical Therapy program (DPT), and continue research in the field of rehabilitation, thereby helping people to improve their physical condition and function on a daily basis. 

Evan Bredeweg

An Environmental Science major, plans to investigate the relationship between jaw morphology and feeding efficiency of New Zealand’s endemic tuatara (Order Sphenodontia). Extinction rates across the globe are evidence that human impacts have greatly changed the biodiversity of Earth.  Some strongly threatened species that are endemic are found in unique locations in the world. When these species are stressed, they are put in danger of losing their preferred food sources, habitat, and security from invasive species. Two of these endemic species are the tuatara of New Zealand, a legacy from the age of dinosaurs. These two species of ancient reptile are the last members of Order Sphenodontia, which dates back over 200 Million years. They are old enough on the phylogenetic tree that they diverged from lizards and snakes before these two separated.

These facts have two very important implications. Firstly, because of its age, any insight into Sphenodon morphology helps to increase the understanding of the course of evolution that led to more modern reptiles. The second implication is that because of its threatened state, observations into tuatara biology could provide critical information that would allow better conservation of both tuatara species. As anthropogenic pressures continue to mount, the preservation of these unique species will become all the more important. After his fellowship year, Evan plans to begin graduate study in conservation biology, working toward a Ph.D. in Conservation Biology or Zoology.

Sarah Piazza

Sarah Piazza, College of Education, plans to spend nine months studying Mexican Literature at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro (UAQ) in Querétaro, México.  She will take Master’s Program coursework in the literature department in order to develop a series of teaching lesson plans aimed at exposing American high school students to different cultural identities.  Sarah plans to design language arts curricula that include bilingual resources and more diverse pieces of literature than are presently used in United States schools. 

Sarah’s Fulbright year will help her to develop a more nuanced global perspective that she will apply to her graduate studies in international education, when she returns to the United States. 

Phillip Quercia

A recent graduate of Pacific University, and currently an alternate for a 2008-2009 Fulbright, plans to work in Oaxaca, Mexico to study and preserve traditional music genres. In the face of encroaching globalization, some music cultures die out; others fuse together with outside cultures, and lose their identity. In an effort to act as musical conservators, ethnomusicologists not only record and transcribe music from a particular culture, but also document the cultural history that surrounds it, and that may be lost. To deepen a regional and international understanding of Mixtecan cultural identity and heritage, Phillip’s proposal pursues dialogue and further contact between Oaxacan and U.S. ethnomusicological communities in order to preserve, document, and disseminate threatened traditional practices among the Mixteca.

Upon completion of his Fulbright year, Philip plans to begin his doctorate education, eventually teaching as an ethnomusicologist, with an emphasis on Mixtecan music tradition.

Pacific University staff, faculty, and administators are very proud of the hard work and the desire to make a difference that has been demonstrated by this year's Fulbright Scholars. Congratulations!

Want to see last years winners? Click here