Mallory Sea of Sioux City, a 2016 graduate of Morningside College, has received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award in ecology from the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Mallory Sea of Sioux City, a 2016 graduate of Morningside College, has received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award in ecology from the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Sea is one of more than 1,900 U.S. citizens who will study, conduct research and teach abroad for the 2017-18 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Fulbright award recipients are selected as part of an annual competition that recognizes academic and professional achievement as well as record of service and leadership potential.

With her Fulbright scholarship, Sea will begin work early in 2018 on a master’s degree at New Zealand’s University of Auckland and participate in research through the university’s Institute of Marine Science.

“The entire Morningside College community is overjoyed and immensely proud that Mallory has been selected to participate in the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government,” said Morningside President John Reynders. “She is very deserving of this honor and joins the select group of Morningside graduates who have received a Fulbright award in the past.”

As an undergraduate biology and chemistry major at Morningside, Sea participated in overseas study and research experiences. During the summer of 2015, she conducted research in a synthetic organic chemistry laboratory at the University of Tokyo through the Amgen Scholars Program. She studied marine and terrestrial ecosystems along Panama’s Caribbean coast in the fall of 2015 as part of a program sponsored by the School for Field Studies in Massachusetts. Earlier this month, Sea completed a marine science internship with the Red Sea Research Center at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.

Congress funds the Fulbright Program through an annual appropriation to the Department of State. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations in foreign countries and the United States also provide support.