MEIS Students Win Academic Awards

Zerlina Bartholomew

Fulbright Research Grant to Morocco

Zerlina is a graduating senior with a double major in French and Political Science with a minor in Middle East and Islamic Studies. She has been involved in a number of on-campus organizations including SGA, honor societies, Model UN, and her sorority. She also enjoys tutoring English to immigrants and refugees at the English Language Conversation Table held at Iroquois Public Library. In Morocco, she will be conducting an individual project on Sub-Saharan migrants and their integration in Moroccan society. During her time there, she will be working with a local organization that promotes cross-cultural interaction and engagement. Afterward, she intends to continue her interest in the Middle East/ North African region, pursuing a graduate degree in international affairs with a focus on migratory policy.

Madeleine Loney

Critical Language Scholarship for Arabic

A native of Hebron, KY, Madeleine will graduate from the University of Louisville in May 2015 with a degree in Psychology and a minor in Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies.  She received the Brown Fellows Scholarship at the University of Louisville, which provides a full scholarship and additional stipend for summer enrichment projects.  Her international experience includes two summers volunteering in Nepal and a year abroad in Meknes, Morocco.  She also attended the University of Texas’ Arabic Summer Institute, where she completed a year of Arabic in one summer (2014).  She received the Critical Language Scholarship to study Arabic in Ibri, Oman during summer 2015; she also will participate in Qatar University’s Arabic for Non-Native Speakers program from 2015-2016 on a full scholarship.

Lila Lutfi

Fulbright Research Grant to the United Arab Emirates

A Political Science major, Lila will be studying legal pluralism in the UAE. This opportunity will allow her to gain professional and academic legal experience abroad before she attends law school to pursue International Trade Law. She looks forward to working with international professionals by interning at a law firm in Dubai and with academics by taking two law courses in Arabic. While abroad, she will also learn about the UAE by volunteering at a museum and she will hone her Arabic to a professional capacity. Her interests include legal studies, political research, the Arabic language, International Affairs, and Middle-Eastern culture and politics. In her spare time, she attends the Louisville Committee on Foreign Relations lectures and volunteers as an Arabic tutor once a week. She is also the founder and president of Cards For Humanity – a student group at UofL that engages students in local and international community service projects.