Pictured: Natalie Bauman.
An alumnus of The Catholic University of America has won the highly competitive Barry Scholarship, while a 2022 graduate is a Fulbright Scholarship recipient.
Peter Varga, a 2019 graduate of the University and a recipient of the University’s President’s Award, is one of just 10 recipients worldwide to be selected for a 2022 Barry Scholarship, which provides full funding for a minimum of two years of study at the University of Oxford.
Barry Scholarships are an initiative of the Canterbury Institute supported by the John and Daria Barry Foundation. Recipients are selected via a nomination process by an independent academic committee. The scholarship includes full funding for tuition, a stipend, and research and travel allowances. Scholars are from the United States and chosen for their dedication to the academic vocation and the pursuit of truth.
“It is an honor to receive the Barry Scholarship as I prepare to fully enter the D.Phil course in experimental psychology at Christ Church, Oxford. I am especially grateful to University President John Garvey for his years of support and encouragement, beginning with his honors course on 'The Virtues',” Varga said.
He added that he previously studied at Oxford as part of the Catholic University honors program Oxford Summer Institute, saying “I am delighted now to be able to return to synthesize the many interdisciplinary interests I cultivated and clarified during my time at Catholic.”
Natalie Bauman, a graduating senior from Cleveland, Ohio, has won a competitive Fulbright U.S. Student award for master’s studies in healthcare disparities at the University of Haifa in Israel.
"My experiences inside and outside of the classroom have prepared me for this program. My field work in the areas of emergency food distribution, refugee resettlement, and community health promotion have worked together with my studies and my research area of health disparities," Bauman wrote in her application.
Fulbright awards are given by the U.S. Department of State and Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Recipients are selected in an open, merit-based competition that considers leadership potential, academic and/or professional achievement, and record of service.
Peter Varga’s research will center on how emotion and higher states (e.g., inspiration) are communicated by composers to listeners via music, and the implications of this process for cultural transmission and evolution.
Varga received a B.A. in psychology from Catholic University, with minors in neuroscience, philosophy, and theology and religious studies. He earned honors in classical philosophy, theology, and humanities. Varga was president of the Medieval Society, founding music director of the Festival Schola Cantorum, student ambassador of the University Honors Program, senior research assistant in the Mental Load and Performance Laboratory and Lunar Psychophysics Virtual Reality Laboratory in the Department of Psychology, head copy editor and citations editor of Inventio student magazine, and a tutor in the Writing Center. After graduating, he received a M.S. in psychological sciences from the College of William and Mary.
Natalie Bauman, as part of the International Master in Public Health program at Haifa, will conduct research to compare community health systems in Israel and the United States. She will focus on the ethnic and cultural health outcome disparities in Israel and the racial and ethnic health disparities she has observed in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Her academic research at Catholic University has focused on racial health disparities and inaccessibility to healthcare for the Deaf.
As an honors program student at Catholic University, Bauman’s field work included emergency food distribution, refugee resettlement, and community health promotion. She had internships with Providence Health System, Ethiopian Community Development Council, the Greater Cleveland Food Bank through Americorps Vista, and the Viva Center. She also studied American Sign Language at Gallaudet University through a regional university consortium. She is on Catholic University’s Dean’s List and won an AmeriCorps Segal Education Award in 2020.
Learn more about fellowship opportunities for Catholic University students.