Features

Senior Eryn Eby named Puget Sound’s first Luce Scholar

Senior Eryn Eby has been awarded two prestigious scholarship opportunities, one from the Luce Scholarship Program and another with the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Both programs are designed to give graduating students like Eby the opportunity to explore their passions and develop skills that will help them make the world a better place.

Eby is a graduating in May with a degree in Politics and Government and a focus in Global Development Studies. Her passion is in international relations and she hopes that the opportunity she has been given will provide the tools to operate effectively as a professional in an international environment.

The Watson Fellowship gives students the chance to travel across the globe to work on self-propelled projects. The foundation grants participating scholars a $25,000 stipend to travel and do independent study on their projects for one year.

“My interest in diverse chronic pain management approaches has multiple dimensions,” Eby’s project proposal reads: “how to manage the pain itself, how to incorporate traditional medicine into modern healthcare systems, and how to apply these techniques on a policy level.” Her project was designed to effect a change in the way chronic pain is treated in the global sphere at the political level.

Eby’s interest in investigating the influence of politics on public health policies was inspired by her own struggle with early onset rheumatoid arthritis. Eby started a summer camp for children in Alaska who suffer from arthritis, and during her travels she hopes to learn helpful techniques for dealing with chronic pain issues, as well as to develop the skills necessary to bring them to the forefront of public health discussions.

Unfortunately, the Luce Scholarship and the Watson Fellowship are both yearlong commitments, and Eby could not accept both. She chose to accept the Luce Scholarship, a competitive experience that sends young scholars to Asia to develop their skills in an environment in which they have not had a significant amount of experience.

The Luce Scholarship gives its 16 recipients placement with a company related to their career path where they are given language training and specialized projects. These projects typically include an economic or political aspect, all focused around improving the participant’s understanding of global politics and completely immersing them in the culture and political climate of their chosen country.

Many Luce Scholars are given opportunities to join the global political scene after their year with the foundation because of the skills they have developed and the determination they have demonstrated while working on their projects.

Eby said that her project with the Luce Foundation has not yet been decided, but that it will be with a public health organization in southern Asia. She hopes to gain “hands-on experience in the global public health field,” and “to experience and learn how to live and work in Asia.”

Eby is the first University of Puget Sound student to be awarded the Luce Scholarship, so it is an honor for us to be represented in this organization by someone with such a remarkable passion for public health and global politics.