A love of Japan and a desire to keep learning led Anna Bammerlin ’14 to apply for the Carnegie Peace Junior Fellow in Asian studies. Hard work – and a little help from professors, administrators and friends – helped the Medina, Ohio, native become the first Kenyon student to land the coveted award.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States. Each year, 10 to 12 junior fellows are selected from applicants from hundreds of colleges and universities to work as research assistants with senior associates at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, D.C. Bammerlin will be working with James Schoff, compiling research for his book chronicling the history of U.S.-Japanese relations.
“I’m just really excited for the work, doing research and learning and getting to use Japanese,” she said.
Those who know her are not surprised she received the fellowship. “She is brilliant. She’s very mature, very strong intellectually,” said Professor of Japanese Hideo Tomita, who Bammerlin credits with teaching her Japanese. “She is the kind of student we see only one in ten years.”
Jane Martindell, director of national fellowships and scholarships, is thrilled Bammerlin is the first Kenyon student to become a Carnegie fellow. “She’s a wonderful representative of the quality of students at Kenyon,” she said. “It’s great for Carnegie and wonderful for the College.”
Bammerlin acknowledges the hard work she did that led to receiving the fellowship. However, she’s also aware of all of the people who helped her along the way. “I owe so much to my professors who helped me, Jane Martindell and other students here who I talked with about my essays and my research,” she said. “I truly feel like I’m a product of this environment. And of other people taking their time to help me be the best that I am able to be.”