MEC congratulates Natalie Au and Rachel Townzen on being named the Pulitzer International Student Reporting Fellows of 2016. As recipients of the fellowship they will be required to complete news articles, short videos, slideshows or other media products on the Middle East or South Asia. On their reporting trips abroad, they will receive editorial support and mentorship from Pulitzer Center editors. Their work will be published on the Pulitzer Center site and they will receive a $500 award upon completion of the deliverables.
The Campus Consortium partnership between Penn's Middle East Center & South Asia Center and the Pulitzer Center is a partnership featuring programming to foster broader discussions and nuanced analysis of concerns that span disciplines, from journalism and business to law, religion and public health. The fellows will help illuminate another part of the world for the Penn community and beyond.
Natalie is a junior double majoring in Political Science and East Asian Area Studies, and minoring in Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies. On campus, she is the founder and director of the Penn Human Rights Conference, and has served on the boards of Penn for Liberty in North Korea, Seneca International, and Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Fraternity. Off campus, Natalie has worked with the One Country Two Systems Research Institute in Hong Kong, as well as Mother’s Choice, a reproductive justice non-profit. She is very interested in the intersection between social justice and technology, and is very excited to learn more about the topic in researching for her project, “DevelopHER: Women, Tech, and Social Impact in India.”
Rachel is a Masters of Social Work student at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Policy & Practice, also pursuing an interdisciplinary certificate in Global Human Rights. She is the rising president of the Social Work Advocates for Immigrant Rights, secretary of the AGBU-Young Professionals chapter in Philadelphia, and member of Penn Law's International Human Rights Advocates. Since graduating from Boston College in 2014, Rachel has worked in various capacities with refugees and asylees in the US and Armenia. She will be working as a knowledge management intern with UNICEF Jordan this summer as she completes her reporting project, which will explore issues related to obtaining civil documentation, protecting family identity, and preventing statelessness among refugees. She hopes to spend her career serving refugees and others in need of international protection, with a special interest in using data analytics to shape legislative and policy decisions to advance human rights.
We are excited to see the outcome of Rachel and Natalie’s Pulitzer project when they return from their travels this fall. To read about the work of past Penn Pulitzer fellows, please visit the Pulitzer Center website.