Davis International Fellows Recipients

Ten Wheaton students will be fanning out across the globe this summer to extend their learning through internships and research projects funded through the Davis International Fellows Program.

The program is designed to help students undertake educationally meaningful international experiences that link to academic or career interests. These can include internships, service/volunteer experiences or structured independent research.

Recipients receive a $5,000 stipend to support experiences of approximately six weeks during the summer break. This year’s Davis International Fellows include:

  • Kelvin Kweku Ampem-Darko ’17, a neuroscience major from Bronx, N.Y. and Ghana, will rotate among several nonprofit organizations, health clinics and hospitals in Ecuador, tutoring, teaching English, disseminating health information, leading recreational activities and providing basic care to patients of all ages, through the nonprofit organization Child Family Health International.
  • Eric Esten ’16, an English major and history minor from Bethesda, Md., will conduct an independent research project on James Joyce in the author’s native Dublin, Ireland, looking through documents in the National Library of Ireland and studying alongside premier Joyce scholars at the James Joyce Annual Summer School.
  • Ruth Gakpo ’16, a neuroscience major and women’s and gender studies minor from Worcester, Mass., will provide treatment and health education to people in impoverished communities in Ghana as a community outreach and community clinics volunteer with Blue-Med Africa.
  • Sam Hickson ’17, from Kennebunk, Maine, a double major in Hispanic studies and economics and a theater minor, will teach students in Guatemala as a volunteer with Safe Passage.
  • Elisabeth Hodge ’16, from Fairway, Kansas, a double major in mathematics and elementary education and a dance studies minor, will return to Mauritius after teaching English there last summer to take on the role of program director for the nonprofit Learning Enterprises. She will interview, hire and train volunteers; secure host families; and find volunteer locations.
  • Karl Rivera ’16, a visual sociology major from New York, N.Y., will follow up on work he conducted last summer on a Mellon Research Grant by returning to Ahmedabad, India to conduct a visual ethnographic study of a textile mill “slum.”
  • Jeffrey Sanborn ’16, from Chelmsford, Mass., a biology major and studio art minor on the pre-med track, will shadow and support healthcare professionals at Levolosi Hospital in Arusha, Tanzania through Elective Africa.
  • Lilia Rose Trissler ’16, a biology major and animal behavior minor from North Kingstown, R.I., will help monitor endangered Yucatan black howler monkeys that have been tagged and released by Wildtracks Belize.
  • Samuel Zarfos ’17, from Waterville, Maine, a chemistry major on the pre-med track, will shadow and assist doctors in public hospitals in the Azores Islands and teach English in the local community through The Atlantis Project.
  • Raymond Zhang ’17, a biochemistry major from Chapel Hill, N.C., will work on cancer research with the Cancer Institute at Xuzhou Medical College in Jiangsu Province, China.