20160323

Two Modern Middle Eastern Studies Students Win the Thouron Award.

The Thouron-University of Pennsylvania Fund for British-American Student Exchange was created to promote better understanding and closer friendship between the people of the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Through the exchange progarm students of exceptional ability from the University of Pennsylvania receive the Thouron Award to pursue graduate studies in the United Kingdom.

The Middle East Center is pleased to announce that two of the three awardees this year are Modern Middle Eastern Studies students.

Jade Huynh is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences majoring in Modern Middle Eastern Studies, who is also pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Interdisciplinary Studies in Global Human Rights. Her honors thesis, The Time-Honored Friendship, maps out a history of relations between Vietnam and Algeria from the beginning of the Indochina War in 1946 to the present day. Her academic and professional interests lie in labor rights and livelihood opportunities for forcibly displaced populations living in the Middle East, and particularly for Syrian refugees, whom she has worked directly with. Jade has served as a volunteer English tutor for Palestinian refugees living in Baqa’a refugee camp; interned for the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration in the Office of Assistance for Europe, Central Asia, and the Americas; and worked with the Jordanian office of International Catholic Migration Commission, an international humanitarian NGO. Upon graduating, she will be pursuing the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies at the University of Oxford.

Angela Perfetti is a senior majoring in Modern Middle Eastern Studies with a minor in Chemistry. Her interests are in Medical Anthropology, on the intersections of society, culture, and medical practice. She will be studying Medical Anthropology at Durham University on the Thouron Award. Her previous research has focused on women’s health, health disparities, and environmental justice. Currently, she is working on a collaborative project that examines the ways in which qualitative methods are being used in patient-centered outcomes research, with the goal of informing funder guidelines and investigator research design. She is also working with a community health clinic in North Philadelphia to understand Iraqi refugees' perceptions of and decisions about seeking primary healthcare.