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Scholar Stories

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Two botanists converse: Memory, science, and the Cold War

Published 10/10/2025 in Scholar Travel Stipend
Written by Kathleen Gutierrez | 10/10/2025

On an August morning on the patio of an Italian deli, two retired scientists met with me to talk of the past. Domingo Madulid, a historical botanist of the Philippines, and Hermes Gutierrez, expert on the Philippine Dipterocarpaceae family, have been colleagues since the 1960s. Over hot black coffee, the two detailed their experiences collecting plant specimens, their collaborations with foreign scientists, and their musings on the current state of genetic mapping and systematics.

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Italy Picture 7

A Journey Through Barga, Italy: Community, Culture & Continuity

Published 09/12/2025 in Scholar Travel Stipend
Written by Mattie Isaac | 09/12/2025

In early July of 2025, my grandmother, mother, and I traveled to visit my mother’s friend in Barga, a small medieval town tucked into the hilly folds of Tuscany and an hour outside of Pisa. After over an hour of jolting twists and turns up a mountain, my family and I trekked further up sleek stone slabs, passing through narrow streets and towering sunset color buildings to make it to our home for the next week.

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Ramsay Goyal with EcoBici Station

Building a Sustainable, Healthy City with Multimodal Urbanism in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Published 08/20/2025 in Scholar Travel Stipend
Written by Ramsay Goyal | 08/20/2025

The street of Buenos Aires are littered with a multimodal canopy of pedestrian, cyclist, bus, and vehicular infrastructure. On the widest street in the city, the 18 lane “Avenida 9 de Julio” street, a center-running bus rapid transit system occupies two lanes in each direction. Although the city maintains a car-dominated landscape, one can feasibly connect neighborhood to neighborhood, suburb to city center, and throughout the entire city without owning or renting a vehicle. Such green urban infrastructure investments support environmental sustainability, improved public health, and inclusive mobility throughout the Buenos Aires metro area.

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Riya

Ayurveda and Western Medicine in Nepal

Published 08/19/2025 in Scholar Travel Stipend
Written by Riya Singh | 08/19/2025

Nepal is a country rich in cultural and medicinal traditions, marked by deep intersectionality across ways of life, religious practices, and geographical settings. Renowned for its spiritual and cultural depth, Nepal offers a compelling backdrop to examine the intersection of traditional and modern healthcare systems. Among its most enduring medical traditions is Ayurveda, a holistic healing system with roots in the Indian subcontinent that has been deeply embedded in Nepalese healthcare for centuries.

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Hansub

Exploring the Sinosphere and Beyond - Understanding the Tides of Cultural Interchange Through my Travels in East Asia

Published 08/19/2025 in Scholar Travel Stipend
Written by Hansub Kim | 08/19/2025

From March 14 to April 1st, I embarked on a long journey to Korea and China to understand the complex relationship between the two countries from a social and linguistic perspective. Through this trip, I learned an extraordinary amount not only about the historical relationships of these two countries, but how their divergence has spawned some of the most iconic cultural products in the modern day.

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Morocco

Staged Realities and Symbolic Infrastructures: A Visual Reflection on Development and Representation in Southern Morocco

Published 08/19/2025 in Scholar Travel Stipend
Written by Ayan Rahman | 08/19/2025

Towards the end of May, I traveled to Marrakech, and, from there, to the edge of the Zagora Desert on a guided tour offered to tourists from all over the world as a cultural experience -- a curated crossing through kasbahs, ancient caravan routes, and the diverse terrains of southern Morocco. I took my camera with me, but not with the intention of documenting for the sake of documentation. I was more driven by my curiosities about what would emerge visually on this well traveled corridor. What types of spaces would be framed? What experiences would be emphasized as distinctly Moroccan? And, importantly, how would I, as a participant in this tour, be positioned within it all? These were questions I wanted to explore through this one of a kind experience.

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Ashfah Alam

Mexico City, Museums, and Memory

Published 08/19/2025 in Scholar Travel Stipend
Written by Ashfah Alam | 08/19/2025

In my final spring semester at Columbia University, I took a course titled “Archival Photography” where we explored how photographs taken in eras preceding ours contributed to the development and remembrance of historical events and understanding. The course itself raised many questions about what is preserved, what is omitted, and why. In particular, I was interested in how the archives can frame and reframe memory.

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Brandon Quach

The Future of Sustainable Vehicles in Vietnam

Published 04/24/2025 in Scholar Travel Stipend
Written by Brandon Quach | 04/24/2025

VinGroup is a multi-sector conglomerate and the wealthiest company in Vietnam. Its most recent venture is VinFast, a fully electric vehicle (EV) company—and the first mainstream automotive manufacturer founded in Southeast Asia to compete with major global EV brands. I traveled to Vietnam to learn more about VinFast’s rapid rise and to investigate whether its pledge to promote a more sustainable energy ecosystem holds up in practice.

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Hansub Kim

Thoughts on Taiwan

Published 03/31/2025 in Scholar Travel Stipend
Written by Hansub Kim | 03/31/2025

Recently (over the past couple years), I have been trying to undo the cultural assimilation I’ve had to undergo as a result of immigrating to the US and making a greater effort to reconnect with the history of my roots in East Asia. I have been embarking on a series of trips to Asia in order to learn more about my cultural heritage from a social, economic, and linguistic perspective.

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