Anya is a recent graduate of Georgetown University, where she earned a B.S. in International Politics with a specialization in International Institutions, Ethics, and Law. While at Georgetown, Anya also served as President of the fencing team, was active in the creative writing community, and pursued research opportunities surrounding asylum policy, culminating in a study-abroad course in Mexico focused on engaging with migrants, policy makers, and human-rights advocates. She has been published in the Council on Foreign Relations’ The Internationalist; the Harvard, Columbia, and Georgetown Undergraduate Law Reviews; and The Anthem literary magazine. Following graduation, Anya remained in Washington D.C. to work as an intelligence analyst for AI-facilitated political-instability and geopolitical-threat analytics with the Department of Defense. As a Fulbright scholar, Anya will research the development of climate migration and security policies in Greece, focusing on the role of climate change as a threat multiplier and driver of migration. With the support of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the University of West Attica, Anya will conduct an interview- and survey-based study of Greek public and policymaker perceptions of emergent climate crises as conflict and migration drivers. Anya hopes her research will contribute to the development of compassionate and community-informed policy to address largely neglected threats to international peace and human rights. In her free time, Anya enjoys writing poetry, watching live theater, running, and baking desserts for friends. In addition to her research, she is particularly eager to explore Greece’s renowned literary history and culture, Mediterranean cuisine, and beautiful coasts.

Avery is a recent graduate from Purdue University where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology with a minor in Foods and Nutrition Science. During her undergraduate career, Avery was very involved in undergraduate research within the Department of Biochemistry and Food Science and developed a strong passion for laboratory research. After completion of the Fulbright year, Avery will complete a Ph.D. in Biochemistry to begin a career in related research. During her Fulbright grant, Avery will be conducting academic research at the University of Crete in Heraklion, Greece. She will be studying the effects of marine-based nutritional supplementation on the prevention, progression, and treatment of obesity and other metabolic disorders using laboratory mouse models. The red algae species studied was identified from the coast of Kefalonia Island and contains potent anti-inflammatory properties. Avery and her collaborators will work to understand how its supplementation in the diet can positively shift the gut microbiome and reduce inflammation and disease progression. The Fulbright experience is providing her with a unique opportunity to collaborate with leading research advisors in the field and strengthen her cultural understanding of Greece. Outside of her research, Avery looks forward to learning the Greek language, understanding current events, exploring the local cuisine, and participating in traditional Greek festivals.

Ella is a Ph.D. Candidate in History of Art at Johns Hopkins University focusing on Greek art, with an emphasis on women and gender in ancient Greece and feminist theory. She is working on a dissertation about caryatids, or female architectural supports, on bronze mirror handles (7th-5th centuries BCE) and public architecture (6th-1st centuries BCE) through the lens of women’s labor in antiquity. She proposes that using the female body as an architectural support demonstrates the importance of women and their labor in sustaining ancient Greek life. Firmly grounded in art history, her project shows how revising our understanding of ancient caryatids is essential to how we engage with and see these figures, and women’s labor, in the present. During her Fulbright year, she will be based at the American School of Classical Studies, Athens, surveying caryatid mirror handles at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Olympia Archaeological Museum, and Sparta Archaeological Museum, among others. She will examine architectural caryatids at the treasuries of Delphi, the Erechtheion, a tomb at Amphipolis, and the Sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis. In addition to her research, Ella looks forward to engaging with the vibrant contemporary arts and literary scene in Athens, joining a walking/hiking club, practicing Modern Greek, and volunteering at an organization that helps asylum and refugee-seeking women experiencing gender violence. Ella previously earned a B.A. in both Art History and Journalism from Pepperdine University and has co-edited a forthcoming edited volume (with Cynthia S. Colburn and Ellen C. Caldwell, Penn State Press, Fall 2024) about gender violence in art history from antiquity to present titled "Gender Violence, Art, and the Viewer: An Intervention."

​Ariel is a graduate of Rutgers University-Newark, where she received her MFA in Poetry. Her poems have been published in ​​Poetry Magazine, The American Poetry Review, BOMB Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. For the past five years, she has served as the Associate Editor for the New York City-based small press Futurepoem Books, where she's also the founding editor of their digital platform futurefeed. In Greece, Ariel will write a poetic adaptation of Euripides’ Greek tragedy ​​Iphigenia in Aulis, a tale of indecision, mob mentality, and sacrifice, based on the myth of the sacrifice of Iphigenia at the hands of her father Agamemnon. ​​Like the modernist poet H.D. who’s loose adaptation of Euripides's Hippolytus Temporizes uses the Euripidean tragedy to think through the cultural revolutions of her time, ​Ariel's adaptation of Eurpides’ Iphigenaia at Aulis will seek to probe the questions at the heart of the original and interpret and reimagine them in a new form, from play to poem, within the context of the wars and political upheavals of ​her time. She will use ​her affiliation with The American School of Classical Studies in Athens as a connection point with other scholars and philologists studying Greek tragedy ​and will also utilize the resources at the Gennadius Library to research the time period, geography, and language of both Euripides and that of the years leading up to the Trojan War, when Iphigenia lived. The poems will feature different sites located on the path that Iphigenia took from the ancient city of Mycenae to Aulis without her knowing she was to be the object of a ritual killing, including the actual site of her sacrifice​, and Ariel will travel to these sites even as some are now developed​.​ Ariel is ​also ​looking forward to teaching a creative writing course at the National Kapodistrian University of Athens as well as facilitating poetry readings​ at the Athens Centre.​ She ​looks forward to maintaining her interest in ​Greek myth and ​studying ancient and contemporary Greece by exploring the country’s many historical landmarks and learning ​modern Greek.​