Thirteen UTokyo students and Six U.S. Students Receive FUTI’s 2014 Summer Scholarships

The Award Selection Committee met on March 8, 2014 at the Community Resource Exchange conference room in Downtown Manhattan. It was attended by Masaaki Yamada (Chair of the Committee and Director of University Relations), Hisashi Kobayashi, Shigenori Matsushita, Masako Osako, Nobuko Sakurai and Amy Vaida (Secretary to the Committee). In a series of discussions that followed the preliminary selections done on March 8, the Committee has selected by April 21st 13 UTokyo (i.e., UTokyo) students and six U.S. students for this summer’s scholarship program.
Ten out of the selected 13 UTokyo students will participate in various summer courses at U.S . universities, and the remaining three will attend English language courses at Yale University or the University of California, Berkeley. Out of the 13 UTokyo recipients, eight are female students, and five are male. Seven are science & engineering majors, while six are humanities and social science majors. Eight are undergraduates (4 Sophomores, 2 Juniors, 2 Seniors), and five are graduate students (1 M1, 3 M2 and 1 D3).
Four out of the six U.S. awardees will conduct research as summer interns at UTokyo’s laboratories. These 4 recipients were selected from 74 U.S. undergraduate students who applied to the University of Tokyo Research Internship Program (UTRIP), which is hosted by professors in the School of Sciences at UTokyo. While the number of applications from the U.S. this year was fewer than 123 of last year, many applicants were top students from leading universities.
In addition to these internship students, two Yale students (one male, one female, both Juniors) have been selected to participate in the Global Summer Program (GSP) courses offered by UTokyo.
The FUTI summer scholarship award, a.k.a. the “FUTI Global Leadership Award (FUTI-GLA),” is designed to nurture future global leaders of Japan and the U.S. One of the selection criteria is a demonstration of leadership quality.

List of Scholarship Recipients

English Language Training Courses (3 UTokyo students)

  • Mr. Yosuke Tanigawa (Bioinformatics, Junior): UC Berkeley Summer Language Studies
  • Mr. Shigeru Chiba (Sciences III, Sophomore): UC Berkeley Summer Language Studies
  • Ms. Izumi Hayashi (Sciences I, Sophomore): Yale University Language Institute

Non-Language Training Courses (8 UTokyo Students)

  • Ms. Akane Inoue ( North American Area Studies, Senior):UCLA Anderson School of management “Managing Enterprise in Media, Entertainment, Sports”
  • Mr. Daiki Iwata (Urban Planning, Master 2nd): UC Berkeley Summer Session
  • Ms. Haruka Udagawa (Liberal Arts II, Sophomore): Harvard University Summer School
  • Ms. Kiyono Fujinaga (Linguistics, Master 2nd): UC Berkeley Summer Session
  • Ms. Zang, Xiaoxue (Sciences I, Sophomore): Yale University Summer School
  • Ms. Yuka Kakinuma (Economics, marketing, Junior): UC Berkeley Summer Session
  • Ms. Sakaya Fujita (Education, clinical psychology, Master 2nd): Ohio State University, Project Narrative Summer Institute
  • Mr. Mahmoud Khalil (Geology, PhD Program 3rd ): Western Michigan University, Hydrogeology Field Program

GSP Courses at UC Berkeley (2 UTokyo students)

  • Ms. Akiko Segawa (Chemical Engineering, Senior): “Environmental Leadership Program”
  • Mr. Tetsu Miyazawa (Law, Master 1st): “Media and Global Protest Movements”

UTRIP at UTokyo (4 U.S. students)

  • Mr. Taweewat Somboonpanyakul, University of Chicago, Physics, Junior: Prof. Motohide Tamura
  • Mr. Kevin Hochstrasser, Yale University, Chemistry, Junior: Prof. Kumiko Ui-Tei
  • Mr. Thong Nguyen, University of Texas, Dallas , Physics, Junior: Prof. Hiroaki Aihara
  • Mr. Pramodh Ganapathy, Duke University, Evolutional Anthropology (1st major), and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (2nd major), Senior: Prof. Hisayoshi Nozaki

GSP at UTokyo (2 Yale students)

  • Mr. Kevin Zhou, Yale University, Biomedical Engineering, Junior
  • Ms. Julie Chang, Yale University, Biomedical Engineering, Junior

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