Fulbright scholarships on the double

AN ATHENRY mother and daughter have become the first family members to jointly study at two of America’s top universities after securing prestigious Fulbright scholarships.
The Fulbright Commission of Ireland annually awards grants to postgraduate students, scholars, and professionals to study or research in the US, and Rita and Ruth Melia have returned from studying at Harvard and Stanford Universities respectively.
Rita was based at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, near Boston, where she worked on the university’s early childhood education Project Zero. Ruth was at Stanford University on the west coast, working with a research team that is investigating the use of mobile health technology in suicide prevention.
“We filled out our applications in the PhD room in NUI Galway one Sunday afternoon and a few weeks later we got the call to say we had both been successful,” explains Ruth, who is a clinical psychologist with HSE West working out of the Athenry Primary Care Centre.

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