Kikta Earns Pickering International Affairs Fellowship

We are delighted to announce that Katherine “Grace” Kikta DMSB’23  has earned the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Graduate Fellowship. The Pickering recognizes outstanding young Americans with interests in pursuing  careers in the U.S. Foreign Service, providing funding towards a master’s degree, two summer internships with the State Department, and mentorship for their eventual career in the foreign service. The award recognizes excellence and seeks to ensure that the Foreign Service reflects the face of America to foreign audiences.

During her time at Northeastern, Katherine has focused her studies and research on investigating a diverse array of social issues and designing innovative solutions to address these needs. An International Business major with a minor in International Relations, Katherine has complemented her rigorous course of study with an exemplary record of research. Working with Walter Gabriel, a post-graduate associate of the Yale School of Medicine’s Infectious Diseases section, Katherine earned the PEAK Summit Award in Spring 2022 to understand how knowledge of one’s HIV status, amongst men who have sex with men in Ukraine, impacted the likelihood that they would participate in regular HIV testing. Building upon this research, Katherine conducted a PEAK Trail Blazer project the summer following. In this work, Katherine was part of a research team, also at Yale, examining the health impacts of environmental migration due to climate change upon those living in the Sahel region of Africa and those in the Niger, in particular. Here, Katherine examined remote sensing data to determine whether the technology could be better deployed to detect and aid similar at-risk populations. Other research, conducted at Northeastern, has focused Katherine’s attention on both drug trafficking and genocide.  In addition to these research experiences, Katherine completed two co-ops during her time at Northeastern, serving as a Demand Generation co-op at Imprivata, a firm specializing in novel digital security applications, and in business operations for Svenfish, a Concord business that supplies customers with freshly caught fish straight from the ocean.

Katherine earned the Gilman Scholarship to fund her study abroad in Singapore this fall and is currently a semifinalist for the Fulbright US Student Program. Katherine is member of Sigma Kappa sorority and is a Building Belonging Fellow at Northeastern.