2016 Fulbrights: Bailey Lathrop

University of Nebraska-Lincoln student Bailey Lathrop, of Valley, has been awarded a Fulbright study/research grant to Argentina for the 2016-17 academic year.

Lathrop is a UNL Honors Program student majoring in geology and anthropology, with minors in Spanish and mathematics, and is going to study rock formations in the Cuyo Group in the Neuquén Basin, covering most of the Neuquén Province. Her research will yield important information about the geologic evolution of South America.

Lathrop will be part of the larger Argentine geological community working with Ernesto Schwarz at the Geologic Research Center at the National University of La Plata in Buenos Aires. While there, she said she hopes to not only study the Cuyo Group, but also engage with the university community.

In her free time, Lathrop will assist with university undergraduate geology classes and attend various Argentine geology conferences. She also plans to embrace the local culture.

“I will live like an Argentine by living with locals, taking tango classes and volunteering in after-school science programs,” she said.

While at UNL, Lathrop has been conducting structural geology research with Cara Burberry, assistant professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences, and completed her undergraduate thesis on the results. She plans to publish her results. She also participated in UNL’s geological field course in Wyoming in summer 2015. These experiences have prepared her to undertake her upcoming research in Argentina.

This will not be Lathrop’s first time in Argentina. During her undergraduate career, Lathrop studied abroad in Buenos Aires for five months, an experience that resulted in fluency in the Spanish language and an understanding of Argentine dialects and slang.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments, host institutions, corporations and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The program operates in more than 160 countries worldwide.