Three Wellesley Students Receive Prestigious Watson Fellowships for International Research

Three Wellesley seniors are among the 42 recipients of a 2023 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. The Watson Fellowship allows graduating college seniors spend a full year in “purposeful, independent exploration outside the United States” on a topic of their choosing. 

Rania Afaneh ’23 is a biochemistry major from Savannah, Georgia. Afaneh will travel to Rwanda, Greece, Mexico, Poland, Palestine and Bangladesh to work alongside medical teams and humanitarian organizations to gain new perspectives on healthcare inequities in refugee communities and what it means to care for displaced and underserved populations.

Allie Mikolanis ’23 is a sociology major from Cleveland, Ohio. Mikolanis will travel to Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Kenya, Nepal and Australia to explore how culture impacts the services that peer-led harm reduction organizations offer to people who use drugs. 

Ellie Murphy-Weise ’23 is a music and international relations-history double major from San Francisco, California. She will travel to South Africa, Switzerland, Germany, Azerbaijan and China to study the intersection of modern opera and traditional music in order to tell modern stories and make the art form more accessible.

This is the second time in six years that Wellesley has had three students receive the fellowship. “The Watson Foundation partners with only 41 colleges and universities across the country,” said Kate Dailinger, director of fellowships in Wellesley College Career Education. “To have three Wellesley students included among this year's 42 Watson Fellows is incredible! It reflects the creativity and commitment not only of these students but of the many faculty, other students, graduates, and staff from across the College who have supported them. We cannot thank them enough.”

The campus deadline for the class of 2024 to apply for a Watson Fellowship is August 22, 2023.