College of Liberal Arts & Sciences undergraduate students have been awarded several prominent scholarships this spring.
Sameer Abbasi and Lyndon Shi have received Boren Awards. Di Lan Johnson, Christine Nguyen, and Karel Pene were awarded U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships. George Bayliss was awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. R. Fisher Houston was awarded the Udall Undergraduate Scholarship.
Descriptions of the awards and students follow.
David L. Boren Scholarships
David L. Boren Scholarships and Fellowships are funded by the National Security Education Program, a federal initiative designed to increase U.S. expertise in languages and cultures in world regions critical to U.S. interests. The awards provide U.S. graduate and undergraduate students with an opportunity for intensive language study and cultural immersion.
“Lyndon and Sameer demonstrate the breadth of subjects regarded as important to U.S. national security and will make informed ambassadors of not just their disciplines, but also of the U of I and the country at large,” said David Schug, the director of the National and International Scholarships Program on campus. “This is the 11th consecutive year that at least one Illinois student has earned a Boren Scholarship.”
A senior in molecular and cellular biology, Abbasi graduated from Urbana High School. He will study Swahili at the State University of Zanzibar in Tanzania this summer.
Last summer he worked as a program director for a health education program funded by the U.S. Department of State, preparing Tanzanian students for roles as doctors, nurses and community health workers. In that program, he served on-site for three weeks, delivering instructional models on infectious disease, injury and mental health. As a freshman, he traveled to Tigoni, Kenya, with the Global Leaders Program to work with the community-based Friends of Creation.
Closer to home, he conducted collaborative research on health systems in East Africa and South Asia for the Global Health Systems Empowerment Network. Additionally, while serving as membership director for the U of I chapter of Partners in Health Engage, a global health advocacy organization, he lobbied for foreign aid funding reform with congressional offices and founded an annual global health impact challenge for undergraduates. He plans to attend medical school and would like to work in a role that bolsters U.S. diplomacy by coordinating health programs and strengthening local health systems.
Shi, a sophomore majoring in history and East Asian languages and cultures, is from Vernon Hills, Illinois, and attended Adlai E. Stevenson High School. He will study Mandarin at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan this summer, followed by a year at National Taiwan University for additional language study.
Shi’s research on the Qing dynasty has been published in the Undergraduate History Journal at Illinois. He also has worked as a historian for the Illinois Corn Growers Association, with a special interest in developing markets in East Asia. At S.C. Johnson & Son, he was a technology management support intern, organizing collections of prototypes for the research, development and engineering department. At the U of I, he worked at the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, digitizing physical files and creating web pages.
His goal is to work as a foreign service officer at the Taiwan Coordination Desk for the U.S. Department of State in order to help the U.S. agricultural industry and develop Taiwanese markets.
NSEP is a federal initiative designed to build a broader and more qualified pool of U.S. citizens with foreign language and international skills. The Boren Awards provide U.S. undergraduate and graduate students with resources and encouragement to acquire language skills and experience in countries critical to the future security and stability of the nation. In exchange for funding, Boren Award recipients agree to work in the federal government for at least one year.
U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships
Three LAS students received full scholarships to study foreign languages this summer. U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship recipients will spend 8-10 weeks abroad and study one of 14 critical languages. The program is part of an initiative to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages and cultural skills to enable them to contribute to U.S. economic competitiveness and national security.
Johnson, of Bartlett, Ill., graduated in December with a bachelor’s degree in global studies. She will study intermediate Chinese (Mandarin) at Tamkang University in New Taipei City, Taiwan, this summer. Johnson previously spent two semesters studying Mandarin at National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan, as a 2024 Boren Scholar. A Chinese adoptee, Johnson first nurtured her passion for understanding her native language through the close study of Chinese entertainment and language exchange websites. She hopes the CLS program will strengthen her proficiency in Chinese for her future ambition of working with nongovernmental organizations, such as the Formosan Association for Public Affairs. Long-term, Johnson intends to apply for a Fulbright award and pursue a master’s degree in international affairs, with the ultimate goal of becoming a foreign service officer specializing in political affairs.
Nguyen earned bachelor’s degrees in Japanese and linguistics from Illinois and is currently pursuing a master’s in library and information science. She will study advanced Japanese at Okayama University in Okayama, Japan, with her CLS award. With a passion for preserving and organizing materials that can be discovered and used in posterity, Nguyen’s academic and professional goals align on expanding access to Asian library and archival collections. Mastering her Japanese language skills during her CLS study will allow Nguyen, who grew up in San Jose, Calif., to engage more deeply with primary sources and accurately represent these sources for Japanese scholarship. After her CLS experience and upon completion of her master’s degree, she will pursue positions requiring Japanese language expertise with an aim to expand access to under-described or inaccessible Japanese resources in the U.S.
Pene, a senior in global studies, will study beginner’s Swahili in Arusha, Tanzania with this year’s CLS scholarship. She is now a two-time CLS awardee after previously studying in South Korea in 2024, where she first learned of the growing partnerships with African nations on environmental sustainability initiatives. Pene realized the gap in her understanding of the scope of agricultural sustainability initiatives in Africa, which spurred her to re-apply for a CLS scholarship to learn directly from those communities. At the U of I, she is a member of the Global Leaders Program, a four-year cohort-based program that promotes human-centered design and places communities at the heart of the solution process. She is a first-generation immigrant from Cameroon, attended Evanston Township High School and is already fluent in French —a language spoken in West Africa but not as pervasive throughout the continent as Swahili. Pene plans to continue learning Swahili in the future as she pursues a master’s degree in natural resources and environmental sciences at Illinois.
Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships
Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships is awarded for students' potential to contribute to the advancement of research in the natural sciences, mathematics or engineering.
Junior George Bayliss was among the 454 recipients of the $7,500 award, chosen from 1,485 nominees.
The result of an ongoing partnership with UWorld, a testing tools provider, and the Department of Defense National Defense Education Programs, the scholarship program honoring Senator Barry Goldwater is the preeminent undergraduate award of its type in these fields.
No university has had more Goldwater Scholarship recipients, 13, over the past three years than the U of I. “I always tell our students seeking nomination for the award that with our excellent campus STEM programs, the biggest challenge is earning one of the coveted endorsements from Illinois,” said David Schug, the director of the National and International Scholarships Program.
Bayliss, a junior in physics and mathematics, is from Arlington Heights, Ill., and attended the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. He plans to pursue a PhD in math and explore the intersection of algebraic geometry and homotopy theory.
He has completed a number of research projects in math and physics, including a project at the Illinois Mathematics Lab on the spatial spreading of altruism, which allowed him to mentor a project under the direction of math professor Olivia Clifton. He participated in a Research Experience for Undergraduates at the University of Chicago and currently works with math professor Jeremiah Heller, pursuing motivic homotopy theory.
Udall Undergraduate Scholarship
Junior R. Fisher Houston is one of 65 students nationwide awarded the Udall Undergraduate Scholarship. This highly competitive scholarship program identifies future leaders in environmental, Tribal public policy and healthcare fields.
The Udall Undergraduate Scholarship honors the legacies of Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall, whose careers had a significant impact on Native American self-governance, healthcare and the stewardship of public lands and natural resources.
Houston, who graduated from Deerfield High School, is majoring in integrative biology honors, a degree program that provides 24 life sciences students the ability to pursue specialized coursework and research opportunities. He plans to pursue a doctorate in plant biology, researching mechanisms of stress tolerance in plants that survive in extreme conditions.
At Illinois, Houston studies the survival strategies of drought-resistant grasses in plant biology professor Rose Marks’ lab. His recent work has focused on leaf morphology, particularly on how stomata mediate gas exchange and water loss. He is continuing to develop machine-learning pipelines to scale his analysis. With the support of an Undergraduate Research Support Grant, he will continue exploring desiccation-tolerance with a systems biology approach, pairing morphological data with new investigations into whole-plant physiology, metabolomics and genetic regulation.
