Boren Nominees Seek to Lead and Learn Internationally

Earlier this semester, three remarkable Huskies applied for Boren Awards. These awards provide undergraduate and graduate students who hold US citizenship with an opportunity to study languages judged to be critical to US national security (broadly understood). Boren Scholarships support undergraduate students, while Boren Fellowships support graduate students.  Previous awardees include Taylor Kimbrough, Rachael Phillips and  Erin Bourque.

Read on to learn more about the interests and accomplishments of Northeastern’s 2022 Boren candidates.

Tyler Bradshaw CPS’22
Language: Japanese

Tyler Bradshaw is a master’s student in Global Studies and International Relations. Prior to beginning his degree at Northeastern, he graduated summa cum laude from Western New England University, where he focused his studies on political science and economics. Tyler is highly interested in East Asia, and ultimately plans to work as a political analyst focused on this region for a US intelligence agency. He has proposed to use a Boren Fellowship to study Japanese at a language school in Tokyo.

Katharine Kikta DMSB’22, International Business
Language: Mandarin Chinese

An undergraduate pursuing a major in international business and a minor in international affairs, Katherine has a strong interest in global health and East Asia. She has served as a research assistant on projects examining narcotics in the United States and newspaper coverage of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in sub-Saharan African countries, and she received a PEAK Experiences Ascent Award this semester to support her work on a research project focused on the HIV epidemic in Ukraine. In the future, she plans to serve as a foreign service officer in the US Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Global Health. She has applied for a Boren Scholarship to continue her studies of Mandarin at Peking University.

Diana Woo CPS’22
Language: Korean

Diana Woo is studying for a master’s degree in Global Studies and International Relations. A 2010 graduate of the University of California-Berkeley, she has worked as a paralegal for a Los Angeles law firm for several years. She is passionate about gender equality and has volunteered as a Korean language interpreter with the Center for the Pacific Asian Family, an organization serving the API community that works to end domestic violence and sexual assault. In the long term, Diana intends to pursue a foreign service career or work as a language teacher and interpreter in the federal service. She has applied to develop her proficiency in Korean further as a Boren Fellow at Seoul National University.