Josiah Gottfried

2020 Boren Scholar

Hometown

Lafayette, IN

Major

Applied Statistics

College

College of Science

 

Josiah Gottfried was awarded the Boren Scholarship in his first year at Purdue, which he plans to use to study Cantonese and Mandarin for a semester in Hong Kong. Gottfried plans to use the cultural awareness and language skills he develops there to contribute to overseas engagement between the United States and other countries.

 

Gottfried notes that his interest in intercultural matters is long-standing. “My mother, an immigrant from China, exposed me daily to Chinese culture, while my father’s vocation as a pastor for international students brought multicultural visitors frequently to our home. These experiences generated a curiosity in me about anything international,” he said. “In high school, I became obsessed with competitive debate. One year the debate topic was the Middle East, which sparked a personal fascination with the meeting ground of the international and the political – international politics.”