May 8, 2003
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417
AMHERST, Mass.- Jessica Cabot, a senior at Amherst College, has been awarded a J. William Fulbright Fellowship for postgraduate study overseas. Cabot will study physics at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai. Cabot is the daughter of Carole Ganz and James Cabot of Wenham, Mass.
In her application, Cabot wrote "In this time of rampant globalization, ideas, theories and concepts flow from country to country, continent to continent, more easily than ever before. Because of the fluidity of communication, it is easy to forget that the contexts in which the ideas were conceived were different." Cabot acknowledges that her Western view of physics "affects the way I see the world, but I don't know exactly how."
Cabot may research the Higgs Boson, one of the fundamental particles of physics, on which she wrote her undergraduate thesis, at the institute, or she may explore some other areas of theoretical physics.
A physics major at Amherst, Cabot won the Bassett Physics Prize in 2001 and received the Albree Research Fellowship in the summer of 2001. She rows on the Amherst Women's Crew and sings in the Amherst College Concert Choir. She founded Women in Physics at Amherst in 2001.
Congress created the Fulbright Program in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Senator J. William Fulbright, sponsor of the legislation, viewed scholarship as an alternative to armed conflict. Today the Fulbright Program, the federal government's premier scholarship program, funded by an annual congressional appropriation and contributions from other participating countries, allows Americans to study or conduct research in over 100 nations.
Cabot is one of five Amherst seniors who received Fulbright grants this year.
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