The Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst/German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has awarded Graduate Study Scholarships to three University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students: Alexandria Ruble, Caroline Nilsen and Mario Castillo.
DAAD’s Graduate Study Scholarships are open to all disciplines and allow recipients to study in Germany as part of a postgraduate or master’s degree program. Ruble, Nilsen and Castillo earned three out of a total 159 Graduate Study Scholarships awarded this year.
Nilsen ’18 is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in modern European history and is using the award to conduct research for her dissertation. Her research interests include World War II, occupation, eugenics, gender, sexuality and memory. This fall, she has been conducting research in the national archives located in Freiburg and Berlin, Germany. Her next research stop will be Norway.
Ruble ’16 is currently a visiting scholar at the Institut fuer Geschichtswissenschaft at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Her academic interests include modern European and German history, post-1945 history, global history, and women’s and gender history. Building on a master’s in history she earned from UNC in 2012, Ruble is pursuing a doctoral degree in European and gender history.
Castillo ’16, a student in the UNC TransAtlantic Masters (TAM) program, is completing his second year in the program at Humboldt University. Castillo Martinez is part of TAM’s newest track, the German-Turkish Studies Program, and previously spent one semester at UNC and one at the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey’s capital. After completing his work in Germany, he will earn degrees from both Humboldt University and METU.
DAAD is the German national agency for the support of international academic cooperation, offering financial support for almost 120,000 faculty, researchers and others working in higher education each year. Its scholarship recipients are selected in a highly competitive process based on academic records and quality of project proposals or statements of purpose.
Additionally, DAAD represents the German higher education system abroad, promotes Germany as an academic and research destination and helps build ties between institutions around the world.
