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The 2023 Winners of the Newman Exploration Travel Awards

By Washington University Libraries

Washington University Libraries are thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s Newman Exploration Travel Fund (NEXT) Award.

The NEXT Award program is intended to support students, faculty, and staff at Washington University who wish to explore this vast world. Travel is a valued means to expand one’s horizons and inspire growth, excellence, and innovation while pursuing both personal and professional goals.

This year’s awardees include three undergraduate students, three graduate students, and two staff members.

Undergraduate student winners

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Kaden Chaudhary
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Kate Farmer
Portrait shot of a smiling woman in a field of flowers.
Nicole Farnsley

Kaden Chaudhary is an architecture major at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts. He will travel to the Dolomite region in Northern Italy to learn more about undocumented, unique vernacular architecture that is environmentally friendly and how it compares with modern architectural styles.

Kate Farmer is an Art & Sciences student majoring in the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities program and philosophy, with a minor in data science in the humanities. Farmer is interested in a career in mental health journalism and will travel to five countries— the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands—to conduct on-the-ground research about the social, cultural, and political methods each country uses to maintain a high level of citizen mental health.

Nicole Farnsley is majoring in communication design at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts. She plans to travel to Greece, Italy, and France to learn more about European art, architecture, monuments, and culture.

Graduate Student Winners

Jacqueline Garnett
Shea McCollough
Kritika Sharma

Jacqueline Garnett, PhD candidate in anthropology, will travel to Italy to enroll in a fully immersive course in Italian and collaborate with the Early Occupation of Sicily project which will allow her to develop a new museum exhibit on Mediterranean migrations.

Shea McCollough, PhD candidate in English literature, will travel to the United Kingdom and Italy to conduct scholarly and experiential research on Margery Kempe—late fourteenth-century England’s most enigmatic holy woman.

Kritika Sharma, PhD candidate in energy, environment and chemical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering, is planning to travel to Tokyo to explore the preservation of the Sanskrit language in Japan and how it is evolving amidst historical, cultural, and religious change, as well as Japanese teaching methods.

Staff Winners

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Kathleen Blackburn Brown
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Antonio Hubbard

Kathleen Blackburn Brown, program manager of English language programs at the University College, will travel to Spain, France, and Bulgaria to gain a deeper understanding of higher education experiences for refugee students.

Antonio Hubbard, a detective sergeant in the Washington University Police Department, will travel to Tokyo, Japan and Seoul, South Korea, to study hip-hop music’s influence on Asian culture through photography.

The University Libraries look forward to sharing more details about the awardees’ adventures in the coming year.