This year, eight Dartmouth College undergraduates have been awarded prestigious international scholarships to support overseas study, with seven receiving the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship for language and cultural research. This marks the highest number of Gilman recipients from Dartmouth in a single year. The eighth student was awarded the Boren Scholarship but declined it in favor of another academic opportunity abroad.
The Gilman Scholarship, administered by the U.S. Department of State, aims to support students who will return to their communities with the global networks and foreign language skills needed to advance U.S. economic and national security interests. Two of Dartmouth’s Gilman recipients also received the Critical Need Language Award, a competitive supplemental grant sponsored by the State Department.
Christie Harner, Dartmouth’s Associate Dean for Scholarship Advising, commented, “The growing number of Gilman applicants and awardees reflects the strength of Dartmouth’s liberal arts curriculum and vibrant culture of study abroad.”
The 2025 Gilman Scholars include:
Iman Bakhshi ’28: A participant in the First Year Summer Enrichment Program (FYSEP) for first-generation college students, Bakhshi is considering a biology major with minors in global health and Chinese. She has been accepted to Beijing Normal University’s International Chinese Language Education Institute for summer Chinese language study and received the Critical Need Language Award.
Najma Bore ’27: A cognitive science student in the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department, Bore will spend the summer in Paris participating in a foreign study program focused on African and African American studies, exploring the languages and cultures of African and Caribbean diasporas in France.
Gideon Gruel ’26: A Hanover Scholar double majoring in Classics and Philosophy, Gruel will join the Classics Department’s Rome Foreign Study Program (FSP) in the fall. His studies focus on early Christianity’s interaction with Roman polytheism, religious intolerance and tolerance, and the relationship between religion and political structures in the ancient Roman world.
Enoch Li ’27: Double majoring in Government and Economics and participating in the Tuck Bridge Program, Li will attend an overseas language program in Beijing this summer hosted by the Asian Society for Culture and Language. He also received the Critical Need Language Award.
Chelsea Ott ’27: Psychology major with minors in Anthropology and Physics, Ott will join the University of Edinburgh’s Religious Studies FSP in the fall. As a pre-med student, she emphasized the importance of understanding patients’ beliefs and values in medical decision-making.
Tina Pan ’28: An FYSEP student pursuing a dual degree in Engineering and Computer Science, Pan will participate next spring in an exchange program at Aquincum Institute of Technology in Budapest, Hungary, sponsored by Dartmouth’s Computer Science Department and the Guarini Institute for International Education.
Andrew Pham ’27: Biology major and FYSEP participant, Pham will join the “Developing Vietnam” FSP in Ho Chi Minh City this fall, gaining vital field research experience for his academic and professional aspirations.
Additionally, Madeleine Shaw ’25, a Government major with a focus on East European, Eurasian, and Russian Studies and a Middle Eastern Studies minor, was awarded the Boren Scholarship to study Arabic in Jordan but declined it to pursue a master’s degree in philosophy at the University of Cambridge.
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