Seventeen recent Pomona alumni have been awarded Fulbright grants for the 2025-2026 cycle as the College fortifies its reputation of being a top producer of Fulbright students.
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the flagship international educational program sponsored by the U.S. government and funds American citizens to study, conduct research or teach English abroad.
Candidates are aided by an internal process through Pomona’s Career Development Office, which includes a summer pre-application and faculty advisors who assist with application development.
Below are the recipients and brief descriptions of how they plan to carry out their award:
Catherine Byen ’25, a computer science major, will be an English teaching assistant in South Korea. Her goal is to work in educational technology, and she says gaining firsthand classroom experience and insight into different teaching approaches is essential to designing more inclusive and effective learning tools.
Sridha Chadalavada ’24, a philosophy, politics and economics major, will be an English teaching assistant in Spain. She is thrilled to experience Spain’s vibrant art scene through cultural exchange and hopes to learn from Spanish classrooms’ commitment to linguistic diversity. Upon completing the Fulbright, Sridha plans to attend law school.
Riaan Dhankhar ’25, an international relations major, will conduct research in India to decode the complex U.S.-India relationship, examining its military dimensions and implications for regional stability within the QUAD partnership between the U.S., Japan, Australia and India.
Trisha Gongalore ’25, a neuroscience major, will research treatments for Parkinson’s Disease and neurodegeneration in India, with a focus on South Asian populations. She hopes to research exosome therapeutic potential in more complex midbrain organoids.
Arjun Govind ’25, a computer science major, will pursue a master’s degree at University College London in the United Kingdom. He will study entrepreneurial finance, innovation strategy, business scaling and customer development through hands-on learning.
Saaket Jajodia ’23, a mathematics and computer science double major, will be an English teaching assistant in Spain. He believes education is most powerful when it inspires curiosity, and he’s eager to support that spirit of curiosity while growing alongside students on a shared journey of cross-cultural learning.
Bianca McNeely ’25, a politics major, will be an English teaching assistant in the Czech Republic. She is interested in learning about how art can play a unique role in countries transitioning to democracy, serving both as a reflection of a regime’s relative freedom and an attempt to reconstruct the national memory and reconcile.
Samantha Moore-Thomson ’25, an economics and politics double major, will be an English teaching assistant in Taiwan. She credits dedicated teachers who were patient and empathetic for helping her overcome her dyslexia, and she hopes to offer that same compassion and tenacity to connect with students facing their own struggles.
Skylar Nguyen ’25, an economics major, will be an English teaching assistant in Vietnam. She is eager to immerse herself in a Vietnamese-speaking environment and create connections with students from diverse backgrounds in an interactive learning setting.
Kaylin Ong ’25, an English major, will be an English teaching assistant in Kosovo. She hopes to strengthen her intercultural competence in the classroom and looks forward to working with a maternal and child health non-profit organization through a supplementary project.
Eli Protas ’25, an English major, will be an English teaching assistant in Panama. He intends to foster creativity in younger students as he pursues a career as a children’s librarian.
Elijah Roggen ’25, a politics and religious studies double major, will conduct research in India to better understand the various political and national identities held by members of India’s Jewish communities, both during the British colonial era and in post-colonial India.
Alexandra Runnels ’25, a Russian and Eastern European studies and linguistics double major, will conduct research in Kazakhstan that investigates the impact of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine on language choice among bilingual Kazakhs.
Michaela Shelton ’21, a politics major, will pursue a master’s degree in anthropology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. She will explore how Black hair salons in Afro-Caribbean and West African communities function as cultural and democratic spaces that shape collective identity, resistance and belonging.
Eli Taub ’25, a biology major, will work at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. He will use environmental data to determine the optimal climate conditions for different pipefish populations in the Danish Straits and identify regions that will become critical to conserve as climate change progresses.
Xiaoxing Yu ’25, a linguistics major, will be an English teaching assistant in Spain. He plans to engage students by teaching them song lyrics, reviewing sentence structures using vocabulary of their own choosing, and assigning them partners in class to learn collaboratively.
Daniella Hernandez ’25 was offered a Fulbright award but declined it.