Georgetown University

Washington, D.C. – Georgetown University alumnus Carolyn Barnett (SFS’09), of Chapel Hill, N.C., was selected by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board to receive a Fulbright award to study Arabic in Cairo, Egypt. She will also pursue an internship with the Cairo-based nongovernmental organizations, the Women and Memory Forum.

“I began studying Arabic at Georgetown out of a need to engage a culture and region that have dominated newspaper headlines since 9/11...events that shaped my political consciousness,” Barnett wrote in her application. "I will use my Fulbright scholarship to build my fluency in Arabic for use in my on-going effort to better understand the complexities of the Middle East and north Africa."

At Georgetown, Barnett worked as editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. She served as president of Our Moment, a student organization devoted to international development issues, and a research assistant at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. Barnett received her bachelor’s degree in culture and politics and international development from the School of Foreign Service.

"Carolyn is ideally suited to graduate study and would be an asset to any institution she is part of," said Shareen Joshi, assistant professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Congress established the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board for the purposes of supervising the Fulbright Program and certain programs authorized by the Fulbright-Hays Act and for the purpose of selecting students, scholars, teachers, trainees and other persons to participate in the educational exchange programs. Appointed by the president of the United States, the 12-member Board meets quarterly in Washington. The Board maintains a close relationship with both the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) at the U.S. Department of State and the executive directors of all the binational Fulbright Commissions. Since its inception more than 30 years ago, nearly 300,000 Fulbrighters have participated in the program. More information is available here: http://fulbright.state.gov/.

About Georgetown University

Georgetown University is the oldest and largest Catholic and Jesuit university in America, founded in 1789 by Archbishop John Carroll. Georgetown today is a major student-centered, international, research university offering respected undergraduate, graduate and professional programs in Washington, D.C., Doha, Qatar, and around the world. For more information about Georgetown University, visit www.georgetown.edu.