UW-River Falls senior awarded Gilman International Scholarship

December 5, 2017-- Nicholas Schlaeger, a University of Wisconsin-River Falls biomedical science major from Grantsburg, is one of fewer than 1,000 students nationwide to receive a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship to study or intern abroad during the 2017-18 academic year.

Schlaeger, asenior, is one of only 11 students in the UW System to receive the scholarship that is named for the late Congressman Benjamin Gilman (R-NY). Gilman served in the U.S. House of Representatives for thirty years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee.

Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000 to apply toward study abroad or internship programs with additional funding available for language study overseas. Since 2001, Gilman Scholarships have enabled more than 25,000 students of diverse backgrounds to engage in meaningful educational experiences abroad.

“I’m honored to receive a Gilman Scholarship,” Schlaeger said. “I have been doing research with Dr. Huang for almost a year now and his work has gotten me interested in cancer biology. I feel prepared for graduate school because of everything that he has taught me here at UWRF.”

Schlaeger plans to take part in UWRF’s Taiwan Biomedical Program in January with Cheng-Chen Huang, associate professor of biology.

Global engagemen is one of UWRF’s top core values. According to the National Survey of Student Engagement, one in four UWRF seniors had either studied abroad or was in the process of doing so in 2017 – a rate 36 percent higher than the UW System as a whole.

The Gilman Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education.

For more information, call the Office of International Education at UW-River Falls at 715-425-4891 or visit https://www.gilmanscholarship.org/.