Carolina Medina Earns Prestigious Fulbright Award

Carolina Medina ’18 has followed a path that has taken her from Adelphi, where she created her own major combining sustainability development and nonprofit management to a semester studying abroad in Australia. Next up? She’s heading to Costa Rica on a Fulbright scholarship.

While in Costa Rica, Medina, a first-generation college student, will serve as an English teacher’s assistant as well as focus on environmental work with local students. The 10-month Fulbright Program will begin in January 2020.

Medina’s interest in environmental work stems from taking sustainable farming courses and exploring ancient forests and camping with Aborigine elders through Australia’s School for International Training.

“This opportunity is a stepping-stone towards a career that combines my passions for environmental work and education,” said Medina. “I am grateful to Fulbright for providing me with the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica to utilize what I have learned through my experiences at Adelphi and the Levermore Global Scholars program and apply it to make real change.”

As a Fulbright recipient and a representative of the United States, Medina will have the opportunity to work collaboratively with international partners in educational, political, cultural, economic and scientific fields. The goal of the Fulbright Program is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Fulbright is the world’s largest and most diverse international educational exchange program.

“Whether she was representing Adelphi’s Levermore Global Scholars (LGS) at United Nations events or studying environmental issues in Australia, she always sought to apply her knowledge and skills to real-world challenges,” said Peter DeBartolo, administrative director of LGS. “Carolina works extremely hard to achieve her goals and also possesses the rare ability to think about our contemporary world in a truly interdisciplinary way.”

“Carolina stands out as an exceptional emerging scholar who is extremely well matched with the criteria for the Fulbright Program,” said Melanie Bush, Ph.D., Adelphi associate professor of sociology. “She is the student who receives the privilege of participation with humility and a sense of the responsibility for seriously paying forward the opportunity she received.”

Fulbright alumni have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, cabinet ministers, CEOs and university presidents, as well as leading journalists, artists, scientists and teachers. Since its inception in 1946, more than 390,000 “Fulbrighters” have participated in the program.