Five CU Boulder students and alumni have been named Fulbright finalists for the 2024–25 academic year by the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Another student was named an alternate.
CU Boulder students and alumni Ariel Feucht, Millie Spencer, Nic Tamayo, Megan Thiede and Stephanie Virts accepted the prestigious scholarship. The finalists will study, conduct research or teach abroad in the following countries, respectively: Taiwan, Chile, France, Finland and Slovak Republic. CU Boulder’s alternate Maia Parkin would teach abroad in Cambodia.
“I am so pleased to have these wonderful people representing CU and Fulbright,” said Deborah Viles, director of the Office of Top Scholarships at CU Boulder. “Through their international focus and the work they propose to do, they are poised to make a difference in their international and home communities.”
Fulbright is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. Since 1946, the program has provided more than 400,000 participants from more than 160 countries the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
The 2025–26 Fulbright cycle is now open. Students who will have their undergraduate degrees or who are pursuing graduate degrees may be eligible. Contact viles@colorado.edu for more information!
Ariel Feucht
Feucht will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in international affairs and minors in business and Chinese and is currently preparing to apply to law school. With her Fulbright grant, she will be working in Taiwan as an English language teacher and be an ambassador on behalf of the U.S. to help facilitate international understanding and collaboration.
Outside of teaching English, Feucht hopes to learn more about the local culture and history, improve her Mandarin speaking skills, and engage with her new community through both service projects and taking part in local traditions and activities.
Millie Spencer
Spencer is a second-year doctoral student in the Geography department and works with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). She is currently doing field work in Concepción, Chile, analyzing glacier retreat and its impacts on downstream communities in south-central Chile.
The Chile Fulbright Science Initiative will enable her to expand her existing research in Chile further south to the region of Araucanía, where she plans to work with Mapuche-Pehuenche communities to document oral histories of glacier retreat and hydrological change, and illuminate how water insecurity disproportionately impacts Indigenous peoples.
Nic Tamayo
Tamayo will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and French with a minor in multicultural leadership studies. They currently work as an LGBTQ+ collections intern at History Colorado and as a content strategy intern for CU Boulder’s Strategic Relations and Communications department. They are also active in various on-campus organizations, such as CMCI Student Government and Multicultural Leadership Scholars.
Tamayo will serve as an English teaching assistant in Montpellier, France, where they’ll be able to continue working with students and helping give a voice to underrepresented communities.
Megan Thiede
Thiede graduated from the Leeds School of Business in 2019 and has since worked in strategy-focused roles across the outdoor retail, technology consulting, human-centered design and architecture industries.
She will pursue a master's degree in accessibility and diversity in digital services at Tampere University in Finland. Through research and collaboration with local non-governmental organizations, in direct partnership with UNESCO Learning Cities, she plans to explore how to co-design instructional practices for city residents to improve digital literacy.
Stephanie Virts
Virts will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and French, a minor in political science and a certificate in European Union studies. On campus she worked as a learning assistant for the English Department and as a student ambassador for the French department.
She will serve as an English teaching assistant in the Slovak Republic, where she hopes to act as a cultural liaison through student interactions, while exploring the rich culture of the region.
