The winners of the Gilman Program’s 20th Anniversary Video Contest have been selected! The judges were beyond impressed by the creativity exhibited in the dozens of entries we received. We decided this would be a great opportunity to invite as many of our winners as possible to share with our audience how they created their entries and much more. This is the second chapter of a two-part series and this episode is featuring Gilman alumna and contest finalist, Angwara Sae-Hoon (Japan, 2012). You can view her entry on the Gilman Scholarship Program’s YouTube channel. 

Angwara Sae-Hoon is a Film/TV Animation Production Professional, Story Artist, and Cultural Exchange Advocate. She believes in the power of storytelling to spark curiosity, celebrate diversity, and observe our shared humanity together. Receiving the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship in Fall 2012, she lived with a host family and studied abroad at Konan University in Kobe, Japan for a semester.

Connect with Angwara on Instagram! 

The winners of the Gilman Scholarship Program’s 20th Anniversary Video Contest have been selected! The judges were beyond impressed by the creativity exhibited in the dozens of entries we received. We decided this would be a great opportunity to invite as many of our winners as possible to share with our audience how they created their entries and much more. For this first chapter in this two-part series, we have invited two runner-ups, Morgan Kennedy (Ireland, 2012) and Devin Sommer (Turkey, 2011) to join us. You can view both of their entries on the Gilman Scholarship Program’s YouTube channel. 

Devin is an Artist, Grant Writer, and Small Business Owner in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. An outspoken advocate for international education, he believes it should be a core component of the education system. Blending business and the arts, Devin collaborates with community leaders and international artists, seeking to overcome cultural divides by engaging youth at home and abroad through the mediums of Blues, Jazz, & Hip Hop.  

Morgan is a public health communications professional currently working in indigenous health and knowledge translation. Part nomad, part foodie, and part photographer, she has fallen in love with world travel since her first study abroad experience in college. She has an appetite for adventure and is guided by her belief that health is a human right. 

Connect with Devin, HoneyPeeps, and Figpickles on Instagram! 

Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn and check out her website, Dear Joanie! 

The A. Gilman Podcast is ready to celebrate AAPI Heritage Month and Military Appreciation Month alongside Gilman alumnus, Jonathan Banasihan (China, 2019). As a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces, Jonathan reflects on his time in the Navy. He explains how his global ambassadorship experience in the military extended into his approach as a global ambassador as a Gilman Scholar. Jonathan also offers insights into the challenges faced by non-traditional college students and how international education professionals and advisors can make studying abroad more accessible to those populations. 

Jonathan Banasihan is a U.S. Navy veteran and prior aircraft mechanic who transitioned into their undergraduate degree in International Studies in 2016 at American University located in the District of Columbia. Jonathan went abroad with the Gilman Scholarship Program in the summer of 2019 to study Chinese in Beijing, China. He graduated in 2020 and currently works in the legal field conducting export compliance at Raytheon Technologies. 

Connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn or the Gilman Scholar Network for other Gilman alumni!

Anthony Latta joins the podcast for the final episode of 2021. This month marks the end of Gilman's 20th Anniversary and Anthony reflects upon the life-changing exchange experience he had 20-years-ago. He also takes listeners behind the scenes of his involvement in Gilman’s video series looking back at the program’s impact. Anthony dives deeper into his time abroad learning Russian and how his time learning the language at Texas Tech University prepared him for success

Anthony is a corporate finance leader with more than 20 years of experience in international development and technology. He holds a BA in Russian Language, an MBA, and an MS in Finance. Anthony went on exchange with the help of the Gilman Scholarship and the Boren Scholarship in 2001 to Moscow, Russia.

Connect with Anthony on LinkedIn! 

Happy Native American History Month from the Gilman Scholarship Program! For our first episode honoring our Tribal Gilman Scholars, Kimberly Fuqua (England, 2018) joins the podcast to discuss how her Indigenous heritage impacted her exchange experience. Kimberly reflects on her experience growing up as a Native American and how she was able to create and find a new community while on exchange in Europe. Kimberly concludes with offering some valuable advice for exchange students across all walks of life on how to balance exploration and studies while also traveling on a budget.  

A proud member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, Kimberly Fuqua is a former special education teacher, devoting 10 years of her life serving students with learning disabilities within and around her hometown of Pembroke, North Carolina. She is the mother of two boys and enjoys spending time with her best friend, her mother. She recently graduated with her master’s from Cornell University where she majored in Public Administration with a concentration in social educational policy and served as a diversity and inclusion fellow. Kimberly currently resides in Schenectady, New York working for the New York State Department of Transportation and is actively involved in her Indigenous identity and served as the co-president of the Indigenous Graduate Student Association.

Connect with Kimberly on LinkedIn.

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month from the Gilman Scholarship Program! Alumni Ambassador Héctor Huyke joins the A. Gilman Podcast to discuss how he and his team at FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) prepared for Hurricane Ida, floods, earthquakes, and a multitude of other natural disasters. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, Héctor goes into detail about what this time of year means to him and why he hopes future Hispanic and Latinx students take advantage of study abroad. He offers valuable advice on what to look for in your exchange journey, and how you can bring your experience home. 

Héctor Huyke (Spain, 2016) used to be a writer, tutor, and journalist in Puerto Rico before Hurricane María. In the aftermath of the disaster, he started working in FEMA’s digital communications team in 2017. Since then he has continued to dedicate himself to serve Latinx communities before, during, and after disasters with a multifaceted and bilingual approach to crisis communications. As part of FEMA’s Digital Communications Team, Hector has contributed to both small and major response and recovery efforts throughout the nation, including hurricanes, wildfires, COVID-19, and earthquakes.

Connect with Héctor through email at [email protected].

Join the A. Gilman Podcast as we continue to celebrate 20 years of the Gilman Scholarship Program for this special storytelling episode featuring Daniela Castro (France, 2017). In celebration of the Gilman Global Experience Blog officially merging with the Gilman Scholarship website, we invited Daniela to expand on her story featured on the Gilman Global Experience Blog. She shares how her travels and studies in France led her to leave her doctorate pursuits to a career embracing three of the most important languages in the world: French, Math, and Computer Science.

Daniela Castro is a Gilman and Teach for America alumna and current coding instructor with Karlie Kloss’ foundation: Kode with Klossy. Daniela is based in Dallas, TX, and currently holds Master's Degrees from Texas A&M University and Southern Methodist University and a Bachelors of Arts in French and Biomathematics from Florida State University. She will also be competing for the title of Miss Texas 2021 this year. 

Connect with Daniela on LinkedIn or Instagram!

Background Music by Eric Van de Westen

Sound Effects Provided by Gaming Sounds FX

Deciding to take on an international exchange can be an already daunting, exhausting, and stressful pursuit. But on this episode, we are joined by Gilman alumna Harriet Browne, who discusses how embarking on exchange as a student with learning disabilities was an entirely different ballgame. Despite the hurdles discussed, Harriet gives credit to her current travel bug, interest in public health, and entrepreneurial endeavors to her time abroad. Not to mention that staying organized while also utilizing the resources around her was key to her academic and social success abroad. 

Harriet Browne (Dominican Republic, 2010), creator of Anansi Travels is a current Master’s candidate with Emory University. She was born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas but her familial and ethnic roots can be traced to Ghana, West Africa, where she takes college students and young professions to explore through Anansi Travels determined to combat the negative stereotypes about the continent of Africa at large. Harriet dreams of one day using her up-and-coming degree in Public Health in an international capacity alongside the U.S. Department of State. She hopes sharing her story will inspire other first-generation students with learning disabilities to embark on exchange.

Connect with Harriet and Anansi Travels on their website or on Twitter!

In this episode, we have covered some of the challenges and triumphs of studying abroad with a disability. We want to make our audience aware that ‘The National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange’ is a project of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, designed to increase the participation of people with disabilities in international exchange between the United States and other countries, and is supported in its implementation by Mobility International USA. Learn more: https://www.miusa.org/’

The Gilman Scholarship is all about exploring the next frontier this month with guest Manuel Retana joining us to talk all things this out of this world. Growing up in Mexico only scratches the surface of Manuel’s international experience as he discusses that and his time accidentally enrolling in a Master’s class during his time abroad in Europe and getting lost while traveling on the trains of Denmark. Hear his thoughts on the invaluable benefits of international exchange for STEM students and why exposure to new cultures was a skill he had to develop for his career at NASA.

Manuel Retana (United Kingdom, 2015) is a Gilman alum and former Gilman Ambassador. Currently, Manuel Retana works as a NASA JSC Project Engineer in the area of Environmental Control and Life Support Systems ECLSS for the International Space Station, Orion, and Advanced Exploration Systems. He develops space hardware to allow astronauts to explore and live in space. Manuel is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas, Austin. In his spare time, Manuel does STEM/NASA outreach internationally in Latin America, India, and Europe.

Connect with Manuel on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn!

The feeling of serving as a representative of your entire race and country is an all too familiar responsibility for Gilman Scholars studying abroad as members of the BIPOC community. This May, Gilman alumni Jacqueline (South Korea, 2017) and Ryan Hung (South Korea, 2017) discuss their experiences traveling abroad as Asian-Americans to the same country on two drastically different academic tracks. Hear about how they both prepared for their international exchange, and how their experience growing up in the United States shaped their outlook on their own racial identities and culture predisposed them to racial ignorance and stereotypes that hold no geopolitical boundaries.

Jacqueline is a current software engineer and is the co-host of the How Did We Not Know That podcast. She greatly enjoys surfing and cooking and hopes to become a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State. Ryan Hung is a multi-talented artist who engages in everything from comedy to dance. He is a current program manager and is soon to start his MA in Performance Studies as a Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis.

Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn or email him directly at [email protected]. Take a listen to Jacqueline on the, How Did We Not Know That podcast available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and connect with her on LinkedIn.

Don’t forget to check out Jacqueline’s article mentioned in this month’s episode here!