Charlotte Yeung

2024 Udall Honorable Mention, 2023 Boren Scholar

Hometown

West Lafayette, IN

College

College of Liberal Arts; John Martinson Honors College

Major

Political Science

 

Awarded the 2023 Boren Scholarship and recognized as a 2024 Udall Honorable Mention, Charlotte Yeung applied to these two distinct scholarships with an interdisciplinary vision of her future informed by her intellectual homes in the John Martinson Honors College and the College of Liberal Arts. The Boren Awards fund U.S. students in any major up to $25,000 to study or conduct research abroad in areas of the world that are critical to U.S. interests while the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation recognizes college sophomores and juniors for leadership, public service and commitment to issues related to the environment or American Indian nations.

Already accomplished as a children’s author, Youth Poet laureate, and Frederick Douglass Global Fellow, Charlotte is driven to harness her deep interest in promoting peace as a writer and ambassador in the world. From leading a poetry course for Afghan women to performing her own poetry in Cape Town, South Africa, and Dublin, Ireland, Charlotte has pursued her academic interests and writing around the world.

When Charlotte was invited to speak at a conference in Japan, she spoke through a translator with hibakusha, who are survivors of the nuclear bomb, in addition to the mayor and governor of Hiroshima. This was a critical moment in her personal and professional development. Thus, she found it a natural fit to spend her junior year abroad as an exchange student from Purdue to Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.

While taking advantage of Waseda’s Japanese language center, which offers flexible models to learn Japanese, Charlotte will make progress on her political science major by pursuing her interests in diplomacy and political economy inside the classroom. In addition, Charlotte aspires to write stories in Japanese and engage in the hibakusha community through university access to NGOs and IGOs focused on nuclear nonproliferation.