Student Stories

Students of diverse backgrounds and disciplines have come through our doors. They dedicate months of time and effort into preparing for and applying to internationally and nationally competitive fellowships. Some have received awards. Some have not but learned about themselves through the process. They used the skills, knowledge and drive gained through this experience to get accepted into graduate school, Peace Corps, and other opportunities that have enriched their lives. Here are a few of their stories.

Kobi Ioni standing next to a small prop plane

Feb. 28, 2023

Taking Flight

Kobi Ioni rode a Gilman Scholarship to Japan

Dec. 20, 2022

Ryan Branson

The Fulbright application process was very rewarding to me, even though I did not end up being selected. First of all, writing the two essays (the statement of grant purpose and personal statement) really gave me an opportunity to think about what my goals and interests were for the grant and also about my future just in general. The campus interview went extremely well for me; I felt I handled myself very well and conveyed my passion to help increase awareness about male eating disorders and help sufferers. I also feel as if the interview gave me an opportunity to…

Dec. 20, 2022

Brendan Marsh

Brendan Marsh, 2017 Mark Twain Fellowship Recipient On April 4, 2017, at about 10:30 a.m., I tricked Brendan Marsh, about to graduate from Mizzou with degrees in physics and math, into entering the Chancellor’s suite—where he was introduced as the university’s fourth Mark Twain Fellow. Brendan thought I had taken him to Jesse Hall to see a bust of Isaac Newton, fitting for an undergraduate with his majors, but I had lied (a harmless white lie, to be sure). Rather than finding a bust of Newton on a bookshelf, Brendan opened the door to see the Chancellor’s staff seated around…

Dec. 20, 2022

Helen Bass

Helen Bass, 2016 Mark Twain Fellowship Recipient Helen Bass grew up in Kansas City, the daughter of a self-described “blue-collar working stiff” who saw that a college education would open doors that were never open to him. When Helen came to Mizzou, she discovered a need to go beyond textbooks, to “bridge the gap between theory and the real world,” setting for herself a goal of retaining a connection to her working-class background while expanding her knowledge and understanding of the broader world. So as an undergraduate Helen spent a semester in Buenos Aires, handled constituent relations in Senator Claire…

Dec. 20, 2022

Carly Garrow

You do not have to spend much time with Carly Garrow to know that she is a “challenge-driven person” as she describes in her LinkedIn bio.  From seeking competitive research opportunities as an underclassman at the University of Missouri to recently completing a half-marathon, Carly looks for intellectual and personal challenges and meets them. Spend a little more time with Carly, and you will also learn that she is a generous ambassador for the places and people she sees as having made an investment in her. For these reasons the Fellowships Office is proud to count Carly among our “alumni.”…

Nov. 1, 2022

Jessica Anania

Jessica Anania 2015 Mark Twain Fellowships Recipient Jessica arrived in Columbia as a Walter Williams Scholar in the Missouri School of Journalism, with a notion of becoming a war correspondent, so she studied International Journalism, along with Psychology and Political Science to provide a strong foundation of the people, places, and politics that would undergird her writing about current affairs around the world. She interned in Brussels through a Journalism School program, and was later “selected to travel to Yangon, Myanmar to report on the state of Myanmar’s free press (or lack thereof) as the country emerged from decades…

Sep. 8, 2022

Zach Parolin

Zach Parolin dedicated much of his undergraduate focus on social justice issues, even spending spring break of his sophomore year sleeping on the streets of Amarillo—five days and nights of intentional homelessness, both to raise awareness of the problem of homeless youth and to honor his mother, who had been displaced from her biological family as a teenager. Also while at Mizzou, Zach, with a few friends, founded Project Sol, a campus organization that collaborated with Rainbow House, a local shelter for runaway and at-risk youth. In its first two years, Project Sol offered mentoring to nearly 200 homeless children…