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Summer Awad, a third year Creative Writing and the Environment MFA student from Knoxville, Tennessee, has been named a Fulbright Award winner for the 2024-25 academic year.  She will be teaching English at the university level in Morocco. “I am grateful to have the opportunity to go back to Morocco after spending time there last summer.,” Awad said.  “My experience teaching undergraduate public speaking, creative writing, and honors seminars at ISU have prepared me to teach at the university level abroad. I am grateful for the support of Fulbright as I embark on my next adventure.”

Having started her writing journey as a spoken word poet, Summer has branched out into playwriting, nonfiction, and page poetry, and she is grateful to be able to do all of the above at Iowa State. Her writing explores themes of race, ethnicity, gender, diaspora, migration, identity, and place. Her semi-autobiographical play, WALLS: A Play for Palestine, was produced at The New York International Fringe Festival in 2016. Her poetry has appeared in Writers Resist, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, and Exposition Review. Prior to coming to Iowa State, Summer spent four years working in refugee resettlement. This led her to teach an honors seminar on refugee resettlement in Spring 2022 in addition to her courses in Speech Comm 212.

Awad is one of around 2,000 U.S. citizens who will study, conduct research and teach abroad for the 2024-2025 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected in an open, merit-based competition that considers leadership potential, academic and/or professional achievement, and record of service. The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to forge lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries, counter misunderstandings, and help people and nations work together toward common goals.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is administered at Iowa State through the Nationally Competitive Awards office. Iowa State students and recent alumni interested in applying for the U.S. Student Fulbright Program can find more information at  https://www.nationalawards.iastate.edu/fulbright.