Jennifer Noveck '04
Jennifer Noveck Receives U.S. Student Fulbright Award
Honors Alum Jennifer Noveck of Northeastern University has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student scholarship to China in Women's Studies, the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced recently. Noveck is one of over 1,200 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2006-2007 academic year through the Fulbright Student Program. Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Program's purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the rest of the world.
The Fulbright Program, America's flagship international educational exchange program, is sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Since its inception, the Fulbright Program has exchanged approximately 273,500 people, 102,900 Americans who have studied, taught or researched abroad and 170,600 students, scholars and teachers from other countries who have engaged in similar activities in the United States. The Program operates in over 150 countries worldwide. Jennifer Noveck, a Fulbright grantee to China for 2006-2007, is the daughter of Tina and Daniel Gilbert of Penn Yan, New York. In 2000 she graduated from Penn Yan Academy and enrolled in Northeastern University's International Affairs program. During her four years at Northeastern, Noveck's primary focus was China and East Asia. She received the Amelia Peabody Scholarship and later, as a middler, Noveck was awarded Northeastern University's Presidential Scholarship for her academic work and her coop experience at the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. The Fulbright application was not her first attempt to travel and study in China. In the Spring of 2003 she applied to do study abroad in Beijing and was accepted. However, at that time the SARS scare was at its height and the program was cancelled for the Fall semester. As study abroad is a requirement for International Affairs majors, she made the decision to go to Tokyo instead in order to gain another perspective on East Asian relations. Upon her return she graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs and a minor in Asian Studies. Noveck will continue her work in Women's Studies and International Affairs in China by doing research on how rapid economic development and the reemergence of traditional cultural beliefs are currently affecting Chinese women's employment opportunities. She will also be researching the social policies that have been created to combat cultural values that have been difficult to change. She resides in Medford, MA with her cat, Ruggles, and Christopher Kemp, who she married on May 30, 2006. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. Among the thousands of prominent Fulbright alumni are: Craig Barrett, Chairman of the Board of Intel Corporation; Mohamed Benaissa, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Morocco; Raoul Cantero, Justice, Florida Supreme Court; Luis Ernesto Derbez, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mexico; Renee Fleming, soprano; Gish Jen, Writer; Dolores Kendrick, Poet Laureate of the District of Columbia; Daniel Libeskind, Architect; Aneesh Raman, CNN Baghdad Correspondent; Robert Shaye, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, New Line Cinema; Ruth Simmons, President, Brown University; Javier Solana, Foreign Policy Chief, European Union; and Muhammed Yunus, Managing Director and Founder of the Grameen Bank. Fulbright recipients are among over 30,000 individuals participating in U.S. Department of State exchange programs each year. For more than forty years, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has supported programs that seek to promote mutual understanding and respect between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The U.S. Student Fulbright Program is administered by the Institute of International Education.