Great Neck's Isabel Owen Wins Fulbright Award

Geneseo, NY (05/30/2019) — Great Neck, NY, native and Great Neck South High School graduate Isabel Owen has won a 2019-20 U.S. Student Fulbright award for Brazil to serve as an English Teaching Assistant in a university or post-secondary institution. Owen graduated from SUNY Geneseo in May with a double major in history and English and a double minor in Africana studies and Latin American studies.

When she returns to the U.S. after her Fulbright year, Owen intends to "work in immigration law to provide counsel for those seeking to change their immigration status, become a citizen, and find work in the United States. Besides law, I plan to work broadly with migrant advocacy for organizations like the Worker's Justice Center in Rochester, New York."

In 2018, Owen earned a U.S. State Department Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship for a study abroad in Nicaragua. While at Geneseo, she was a Presidential Scholar and worked as a tutor for the Writing Learning Center, the History Writing Center, the McNair Scholar Program, and the Geneseo Student Coalition for Migrant Workers. She served as coordinator for the Migrant Language and Culture Exchange, and in 2018, she interviewed Geneseo community members regarding 9/11 for the Voices in the War on Terror history project.

SUNY Geneseo was recently named a Top Producer of U.S. Student Fulbright awards, the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announced in its annual article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Fulbright Program is the highly competitive flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and citizens of other countries. According to the U.S. State Department, Fulbrighters are considered cultural ambassadors who "interact with their hosts on a one-to-one basis in an atmosphere of openness, academic integrity, and intellectual freedom, thereby promoting mutual understanding."

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