BRANCHBURG TOWNSHIP, NJ (Somerset County) – Jenna Douglas of Washington, DC, a member of Raritan Valley Community College’s Class of 2017, was recently selected as a Fulbright Scholar.
Douglas, a former resident of Bridgewater Township, will spend the 2023-2024 academic year serving as an English Teaching Assistant in La Rioja, Spain.
While at RVCC, Douglas was a member of the Honors College and the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. She received an Associate Degree in Liberal Arts-Social Science, with summa cum laude honors.
A student ambassador at RVCC, Douglas traveled to Nepal to participate in the Asha service project as a member of RVCC Rotaract Club to distribute school supplies to students in remote villages. Douglas also participated in two trips in Montego Bay, Jamaica to enhance educational environments for students.
After RVCC, Douglas transferred to Georgetown University, where she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and completed a significant amount of work in Justice and Peace studies. She graduated from Georgetown Phi Beta Kappa with magna cum laude honors in 2019.
At Georgetown, Douglas continued her leadership and service as a peer mentor to students in the DC community. She served as a leader of an Alternative Break Program and authored a thesis to understand the complexities that parents have navigating the juvenile justice and education system.
After graduating, Douglas served as an education public policy and advocacy intern on Capitol Hill, helping to inform Congressional staffers about disparities in education before taking a full-time role with Aspen Institute’s Education & Society program. At the Aspen Institute, she developed professional learning experiences for education leaders at all levels of the education system, helping them to gain insights on challenges and educational disparities in the K-12 education system. Outside of work, Douglas continued to serve as a peer mentor to youth in the DC community and teach English to English-language learners.
Currently, Douglas works as a Strategy & Analytics Consultant for Deloitte Consulting in Arlington, VA, in its Higher Education practice. In that role, she helped launch the New Era Forum, an inaugural convocation for presidents and chancellors of universities to discuss the most pressing challenges in higher education post-COVID-19.
As a Fulbright Scholar, Douglas plans to deepen her understanding of the role that education plays in building the social fabric of our global society and advance her career to continue increasing opportunities for students, especially those facing the greatest challenges.
The Fulbright Program, the flagship international academic exchange program sponsored by the US government, has fostered mutual understanding between the United States and other countries since 1946. Each year, the US Congress appropriates funds to the US Department of State to sponsor the Fulbright Program.
The program provides awards to approximately 8,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and professionals each year from the United States and 160 countries.
Fulbright alumni from the United States and around the world have gone on to achieve distinction in government, science, the arts, business, philanthropy, and education. Among the ranks of Fulbright alumni are 62 Nobel Prize recipients, 78 MacArthur Foundation Fellows, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 41 current or former heads of state or government.
For more information about the Fulbright program, visit https://us.fulbrightonline.org/about/fulbright-us-student-program.
