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Alumna Earns Fellowship to Support Public Health Initiatives in Ethiopia

Lianne Gonsalves ‘10 has received a prestigious David L. Boren Fellowship which will fund a year in Ethiopia. During her time in Africa, Gonsalves will immerse herself in language acquisition and a qualitative research project. Gonsalves will collect data on family planning practices and natural resource use by local communities in the region. She plans to use the data to design family planning modules tailored to each community.

Gonsalves is currently pursuing her master’s degree in public health at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the oldest school of public health in the world. She graduated from NC State in 2010 with degrees in international studies and biological sciences.

During her undergraduate career, Gonsalves, a Park Scholar, participated in two internships with the U.S. Department of State — one in Washington, D.C. and the other in Honduras, and also studied abroad in Guatemala. She was a national finalist in ballroom dancing and served as president of the Ballroom Dance Team. Gonsalves was a coxswain on the Rowing Club and a member of the Order of Thirty and Three, Phi Beta Kappa, and University Ambassadors. She was selected to deliver the student address at the 2010 spring commencement ceremony.

CHASS featured Gonsalves in a video as she was preparing to spend a year in Venezuela on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship.

Read the full story about her Boren Fellowship plans in the Park Scholars Newsletter.