Scholars, Magazine 2019, Issue 2

“i’ve had the opportunity to network with a lot of thought leaders who are doing innovative work.

There’s a good network of us on the Hill.”

over the past decade, the number of roanoke College students who have received prestigious scholarships and fellowships through such organizations as the Fulbright scholar Program, the Harry s. Truman scholarship Foundation, the barry Goldwater scholarship and excellence in education Foundation, and others, has risen exponentially. in fact, for three consecutive years, the College has been named a top producer of Fulbright U.s. students.

— Zahava Urecki ’16, professional staff member, U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, 2015 Harry S. Truman Scholar

but what pivotal role do these awards play in the lives of those who receive such honors? We asked five alumni. For them, the awards were transformative.

scholar stories

by LesLie TayLor

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10 ROANOKE COLLEGE MAGAZINE | ISSUE TWO 2019

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lexibility is a must when scheduling a workday interview with Zahava Urecki ’16, a professional staff member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources.

Urecki works for ranking committee member Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), the Democrats’ top member on the Senate committee devoted to energy issues. The work can be high-pressure with long hours.

Consequently, the accommodation of scheduling changes is warranted in the pressure cooker that is Capitol Hill.

“My apologies,” she offers profusely, returning a phone call several minutes past an appointed interview time. Asked how much time she can spare, she replies “15 minutes,” which in the hurried moment, seems generous.

Urecki, of Charleston, West Virginia, has been working on the Hill since 2013. She interned for Sen. Manchin and former U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall II (DW.Va.), the summer between her freshman and sophomore years at Roanoke, getting a good taste of the career she’d first set her sights on as an 11-year-old fan of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report.”

The internship cemented her desire to be part of a world of enormous power, influence and impact. She majored in political science at Roanoke and demonstrated her commitment to a career in public service through work as a writing center tutor and president of the Hillel Jewish Student Group.

Then in 2015, Urecki became the first Roanoke College student to receive the prestigious Harry S. Truman Scholarship, awarded to students viewed as having the potential to become change agents in the world.

“I never would have applied for the Truman if not for Dr. [Jennifer] Rosti,” Urecki says of the College’s director of major scholarships and fellowships. “That’s not the type of thing I would have done. But Roanoke believed in me more than I believed in myself.”

The Truman, to use well-worn but perfectly good phrases, has opened doors and broadened horizons for Urecki.

“I’ve had the opportunity to network with a lot of thought leaders who

Zahava Urecki, in the halls of the U.S. Capitol, believes she is in the best place to help her home state of West Virginia.

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THE PROFESSOR r. Jake Bennett ’08 discovered his love for math and science as a rising senior in high school. A physics professor at a college in Lexington, Virginia, the city where he and his family lived at the time, invited him to campus during the summer of 2002 to conduct research.

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and their antiparticles (positrons) to simulate the high-energy environment immediately following the Big Bang.

“The primary goals of the Belle II experiment are focused on obtaining a better understanding of fundamental particles and their interactions,” Bennett himself explains in the article. “We will use Belle II data to study new particles and processes in an attempt to gain a better understanding of fundamental particles and their interactions.”

The purpose of acquiring this understanding? In simple terms, Bennett says knowing why the universe looks the way it does is “invaluable.”

“A lot of technological advances come from particle physics, particularly medical technology and medical imaging such as radiation therapy and PET scans,” Bennett says. “They all have a foundation in particle physics.”

The University of Mississippi has been a Belle II member institute since 2013, with a team contributing to hardware, software and computing projects for the global experiment, according to the article.

The university’s role in the collaboration is a significant one, Bennett says.

“We collected data in May and June. We now need to put that into a format so that analysts can use it to study physics,” he says.

“It is amazingly exciting.”

“[The Goldwater] had the benefit of building my resume, my CV, when applying to graduate school. it was a piece i could use to bolster my academic credentials.”

— Dr. Jake Bennett ’08, assistant professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Mississippi, 2007 Goldwater Scholar

Dr. Jake Bennett with one of his University of Mississippi graduate students, Saroj Pokharel, who is wearing a virtual reality headset running a simulation of the Belle II experiment.

The experience ignited a spark that fully fired once he entered Roanoke College, with the distinct desire to pursue a research career in physics and mathematics.

The summer after his freshman year, he studied the mathematics of a tennis serve with Dr. Roland Minton, a mathematics professor at Roanoke. (“The equations describing the path of the tennis ball are non-linear and cannot be solved explicitly.” Bennett explains.)

He also worked with Dr. Rama Balasubramanian, a Roanoke physics professor, synthesizing carbon nanotubes, large tube-shaped molecules of pure carbon that can act as antennas for radios and other electromagnetic devices, among other uses. (“We actually produced our own,” Bennett recalls.)

As a sophomore, Bennett was one of the first three college and university students nationwide to be awarded a $10,000 Rossing Physics Scholarship through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

He also was recognized by the Alpha Chi National College Honor Society with an Alfred H. Nolle Scholarship, and participated in Cornell University’s Research Experience for Undergraduates program in Cornell’s Laboratory for ElementaryParticle Physics.

And by the end of his junior year, the physics and math double-major was named a Barry M. Goldwater Scholar, recognizing outstanding students nationwide who plan to pursue careers in science, math or engineering.

The award had the immediate effect of “making it easier for me to focus on my

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are doing innovative work,” she says. “I’ve been able to talk to people in my initial Truman class as well as older Trumans.

There’s a good network of us on the Hill.”

The Truman award includes $30,000 for graduate school, which Urecki has not yet tapped. Truman scholars are given four years of automatic deferral after graduation and can request additional years of deferral, but for now Urecki is focusing on her work as the point person on high-priority topics in the energy portfolio, issues such as workforce development, vehicle technologies, manufacturing — issues of great interest and impact in her home state of West Virginia.

West Virginia is a leading energy producer; it is the largest coal producer east of the Mississippi River, accounting for one-tenth of the nation’s production. But “the market forces are starting to steer away from that, and Senator Manchin is focused on how to make sure rural communities, like those where coal has been mined for generations in West Virginia, are part of the energy solutions of the future as opposed to being left behind.”

Urecki’s desire to help her home state permeates the influence she wants to have on U.S. government policy. She has worked on the Hill a little over three years — as a staff assistant, legislative correspondent and legislative aide — and sees herself staying a little longer. “The opportunity to work with Sen. Manchin on issues that are significant to West Virginia on a daily basis is something that’s important to me,” she says.

“Eventually, I want to go back to West Virginia,” Urecki says. “But it’s an interesting time to be in Washington, and there’s a reason why I’m here during this time.

It’s the best place for me to help West Virginia.”

academic work, rather than getting a job to support myself,” Bennett says. “It also had the benefit of building my resume, my CV, when applying to graduate school. It was a piece I could use to bolster my academic credentials.”

Bennett went on to earn an M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from Indiana University, Bloomington. After five years as a postdoctoral research associate and a research physicist at Carnegie Mellon University, Bennett joined the faculty at the University of Mississippi in 2018 as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

“Research is what I do now. It is my profession,” says Bennett. “My area of research is called high-energy physics, experimental elementary particle physics.”

Earlier this year, Bennett led a team of

physicists who are part of a global network of researchers making significant contributions to a groundbreaking particle physics project called the Belle II experiment.

For explanation, Bennett points to a news posting on the University of Mississippi website. According to the article, the Belle II network includes more than 900 members from around the world seeking to answer a great mystery of particle physics: If matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts during the Big Bang, why is the universe today filled almost entirely with matter?

To try to the solve that mystery, the article explains, researchers using the SuperKEKB particle accelerator at a research facility in Tsukuba, Japan, collide bunches of particles of matter (electrons)

THE EDUCATOR athleen Ouyang ’13 gushes with enthusiasm as she talks of bringing history to life for her students at Oakcrest School in Vienna, Virginia.

It is the history of the ancestry of this daughter of a Chinese-American father and granddaughter of a gentleman who years ago piqued her desire to learn about Chinese history and culture.

A U.S. Fulbright Student Research Award in 2013 elevated that desire to fulfillment.

Ouyang, a history major, learned two days before graduating from Roanoke that she had been admitted into the Fulbright U.S. Student Program for postgraduate research. (“I was on my way to the senior dinner at President Maxey’s

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city — the starting point of the ancient network of trade routes known as the Silk Road — re-emerged in the 1990s as a cultural, industrial and educational center of inland China.

After spending the first four months of her Fulbright in an intensive Chinese language program, Ouyang dove into a study of how historic preservation and tourism intersect.

“It was important for me to have the

“it was important for me to have the experience of living in China. Living abroad really does give you a sense of perspective of the history and culture of the place.”

Kathleen Ouyang brings aspects of Chinese history and culture into the classroom for her students at a private, all-girls school.

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— Kathleen Ouyang ’13, faculty member and 12th grade dean, Oakcrest School, Vienna, Virginia, recipient of 2013 U.S. Fulbright Student Research Award

experience of living in China,” Ouyang says. “With the intensive language program, and doing research and living there, my language skills would never have reached the level they have. And I never would have been able to learn about all the historic sites that I did. I would not have been able to get to this point.”

“This point” is the private, all-girls Oakcrest School in Vienna, Virginia, her alma mater, and where six years ago, she returned to teach ninth-grade ancient world history and 12th-grade government and modern world history.

Teaching the history classes “is where my Fulbright directly impacts my career now,” Ouyang says. Both classes have given her the opportunity to bring aspects of Chinese history and culture into the classroom, and share personal experiences and knowledge she has acquired in her travels to China.

“The students really love when I tell them stories about the Terracotta Warriors,” Ouyang says. “I am able to show them something they might not have an experience with. I give them perspective, bring history to life. The students get a lot of U.S. history, but once they get a chance to branch out, it gives me opportunity to share. I really love that.”

Ouyang’s passion for broadening learning experiences for her students — one of whom is now a sophomore at Roanoke College — has been inspired by the dedication exhibited by her professors at Roanoke, in particular, Dr. Stella Xu, professor of history.

Ouyang was one of four Roanoke College students who traveled to China with Xu in 2012. The team conducted research for the project, “Reinvented Tradition in the Age of Globalization: The Silk Road and its Legacy in Contemporary China.” The project was made possible by the ASIANetwork-Freeman Foundation Student-Faculty Fellows Program.

It was the ASIANetwork-Freeman program that Ouyang says helped put her on the path to Fulbright.

“It was important for me to have the experience of living in China,” she says.

“Living abroad really does give you a sense of perspective of the history and culture of the place. Conducting research allowed me to integrate into culture and not just stay on the surface…It played an integral role in so many ways.”

“JeT quite literally enabled everything that came after it.”

— Maj. James Guthrie ’98, operations officer for the 461 Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, 1998 Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program scholar

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house when I found out,” she says.) Two months later, Ouyang, of Potomac, Maryland, was on a plane to China, where she spent the next 14 months — the first four in Harbin for a language program, and the remaining months at XiBei University, researching the city’s heritage tourism.

Xi’an is home to the famed “Bingmayong,” or Terracotta Army, the thousands of lifesize, hand-molded figures buried with China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. The

Maj. James Guthrie oversees the work of more than 325 airmen, both active duty and in the Georgia Air National Guard.

THE OFFICER aj. James Guthrie ’98 cannot easily trace a direct line between the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program award he received during his senior year at Roanoke College and his current job as operations officer for the 461 Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia.

The two years he spent as a JET scholar in the late 1990s teaching English as a second language in Japan, seem worlds away — literally and figuratively — from his current position, overseeing the operations and maintenance of the U.S. Air Force’s $5.9 billion fleet of JSTARS (Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System) aircraft.

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Yet it was the JET award that gave Guthrie the opportunity to deepen his interest in Japanese history and put him on a path that, oddly and in retrospect, seems like a natural evolution.

As a Roanoke College Summer Scholar in 1997, Guthrie, a history major, had an opportunity to study the history of his choice.

“I was burned out on U.S. history and wasn’t interested in European history, but I found Japanese history interesting,” says Guthrie, a native of Richmond, Virginia.

His Summer Scholar research in 1997, “The Influence of Buddhism on Japanese Government and Imperial Court Life,” solidified that interest. Guthrie became one of the first Roanoke College students to major in history with a concentration in East Asian studies.

Several history faculty members advised Guthrie that if he was serious about his study of the Land of the Rising

Sun, he needed to immerse himself in that country. Dr. Gary Gibbs, history professor, and Dr. Susan Millinger, now-retired professor of history, helped Guthrie turn around, in 72 hours, an application for a JET post-graduate scholarship that would send him to Japan to live and work.

The JET program offered several job options; Guthrie chose teaching at a middle school in Niigata, a city on the northwest coast of Japan. The experience was invigorating, Guthrie says, further deepening his interest in Japan, even more so when he met a teacher at the school who would later become his wife.

In 2000, the two married and moved to the United States. Guthrie enrolled at Cornell University, earning a master’s degree in Asian Studies. The couple then moved to Guthrie’s hometown of Richmond, Virginia, where he taught Japanese language and culture at the private Seven Hills School, later teaching Japanese ROANOKE.EDU

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“i considered myself a pretty resilient individual before i embarked on my journey in Laos, but when my time there ended i had the sense that i could do anything and overcome any challenge i faced in work or in life.”

— Courtney Vaughan ’15, Coverdell Fellow, Master of Arts in Peace and Justice Program, University of San Diego, recipient of 2014 Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship

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another four and a half years at schools in Richmond and in Chesterfield County.

In Richmond, Guthrie’s connection to Japan continued through groups such as the Richmond Sister Cities Commission.

He served as a translator during visits of delegations from Richmond’s Sister City of Saitama, Japan. He continued to teach, yet felt the pull to shift his career path.

“The military seemed like an attractive option,” Guthrie recalls. “So I applied, was accepted to officer training school, and graduated as an aircraft maintenance officer.”

From 2009 to 2013, Guthrie served in various aircraft support and maintenance positions at Air Force bases in Arizona and North Carolina. He deployed twice to Afghanistan, once to Kandahar and once to Shindand Air Base.

In 2016, Guthrie applied for and was accepted into the first active duty cohort of the U.S. Air Force Language Enabled Airman Program — or LEAP. The program aims to sustain and improve the language and cultural capabilities of airmen (the USAF term for both men and women).

“The Air Force has been trying to identify people with existing language skills and find how they can be utilized in working with partner nations,” Guthrie says.

Earning the LEAP certification helped pave the way for Guthrie to return to Japan, this time as senior instructor/ exchange officer to the Japanese Air Self Defense Force in Hamamatsu, Japan.

He served as a bilingual instructor of DOD/USAF organization and USAF maintenance operations courses in Japanese for all new Japanese Air Self Defense Force maintenance officers.

Guthrie had come full circle, returning to a country in which his interest was nurtured at Roanoke College.

“In the Air Force there are multiple paths for maintenance officers, but quite often, one of our first three assignments is what is called a ‘career broadening assignment,’ that is, one that is considered outside of our core maintenance career field, but will broaden our experience,” Guthrie explains. “Working for the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force was my career broadening assignment. Once we do that job, we have to come back to the ‘core’ field. In my case, I needed to come back and be a maintenance operations officer to check that box in my develop-

Courtney Vaughan’s Fulbright award laid the groundwork for her graduate studies and deepened her passion for helping others.

ment as a maintenance officer.”

At Robins Air Force Base, Guthrie oversees the work of more than 325 airmen, both active duty and in the Georgia Air National Guard. It is a difficult assignment in that JSTARs are referred to as “highdemand, low-density assets,” he says.

“There are very few of them in the fleet and everybody wants to use their capabilities. When you couple that with the age of the fleet, keeping the jets healthy, missioncapable and flying can be extremely challenging.”

Guthrie’s fondness for Japan lingers. He says he will try to return there in one of his next two or three assignments, either as a squadron commander in a unit in Japan or as a staff member for some aspect of U.S. Forces Japan.

He credits the JET award for “quite literally enabling everything that came after it — my relationship with the Japanese

culture and Japan, going to Cornell, my job as a teacher of Japanese, meeting my wife, serving as a Japanese linguist.”

“Its influence continues.”

THE PEACEBUILDER ourtney Vaughan ’15 reels off a list of how her Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Laos four years ago meant doing without the creature comforts she took for granted back home in the United States: 1. “We weren’t allowed to drive a car or motorbike, so I commuted to the capital from my village via bicycle or bus.”

2. “Dryers did not exist, so if I needed clean, dry clothes, I had to plan.”

3. “I learned how to eat seasonally,

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which required learning a million different recipes for cooking eggplant.”

4. “The classrooms I taught in weren’t equipped with air conditioning, let alone classroom materials. I got creative as a teacher, and overall as a person, and definitely resourceful.”

But don’t misinterpret these remarks as protestations; they are instead reflections of a real-world experience that Vaughan, of Charleroi, Pennsylvania, says “helped shape my life trajectory.” It is a broad, extensive path that led her to enter, this fall, the University of San Diego’s Master of Arts in Peace and Justice Program as a Coverdell Fellow.

“My time in Laos opened the world of local-level community development work to me as a career possibility, as well as government-based development work and diplomacy. I started to seriously consider a career as a diplomat or the prospect of

working internationally in development work.”

In Laos, Vaughan worked closely with Lao government employees to help them improve their English-speaking skills in preparation for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations 2017 Summit and for then-President Barack Obama’s visit that year to Laos. Vaughan learned how to network, connecting with people in the U.S. Embassy as well as repatriates and expatriates in Laos who worked for NGOs and nonprofit organizations.

“I grew as a person, and I learned a ton of valuable life skills,” she says. “I considered myself a pretty resilient individual before I embarked on my journey in Laos, but when my time there ended I had the sense that I could do anything and overcome any challenge I faced in work or in life.”

Vaughan’s year in Laos was pivotal in that it led her to the Peace Corps, where

she served in the former Soviet republic of Armenia as a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) volunteer in a primary school. There, she and her Armenian counterpart opened a resource center in the school and held a civic engagement discussion series to educate youth on how to become active members of their community. She also worked with other Peace Corps volunteers and Armenian members of the Youth for Future NGO to plan and hold the annual Teaching Our Boys Excellence Summer Camp, a project that gives young Armenian men the tools and skills needed to cultivate change in their communities.

“I also learned how to speak fluent conversational Armenian and gained a second family in the world,” Vaughan says. “All of these experiences can be traced back to my Fulbright, and then even further back to my time at Roanoke College.”

Vaughan’s years at Roanoke were replete with supportive professors and study abroad experiences that opened her eyes to the possibility of applying for a Fulbright award. She attributes a May Term Travel Writing course in Cambodia and study abroad in the Czech Republic to gaining experience that not only helped her become a competitive Fulbright candidate, but also allowed her to develop skills that were valuable during her year in Laos.

“Roanoke College also gave me the tools necessary to be a global citizen by serving communities in my own backyard and abroad,” she says. “I really believe my time at Roanoke College planted the seeds of transforming my passion to help others gain access to resources, into a career path.”

Therein lies the continuing influence of Vaughan’s Fulbright award. She discovered the depth of her passion for helping others — not just as something she wants to do in her career, but in her everyday life, even in the smallest of ways, she says. It laid the groundwork for her graduate studies in Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego.

“I hold near and dear to my heart the communities around the world that embraced me for a sliver of time,” Vaughan adds. “Those connections taught me how important and powerful community relationships can be. They are necessary for change and growth to happen around the world.” RC

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