Alexa Fults, a University of the South senior politics major from Morrison, Tennessee, has been awarded one of the most prestigious fellowships in international relations, a James C. Gaither Junior Fellowship from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She was nominated by the university for placement in the Fellowship’s Russia and Eurasia Program, and was selected for that program.

Each year, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace offers approximately 12 one-year Gaither Fellowships to uniquely qualified graduating seniors selected from a pool of students nominated by several hundred participating universities and colleges. Gaither Fellows work as research assistants to Carnegie’s senior scholars. They have the opportunity to conduct research for books, co-author journal articles and policy papers, participate in meetings with high-level officials, contribute to congressional testimony, and organize briefings attended by scholars, journalists, and government officials.

Fults will spend next year at Carnegie’s U.S. center in Washington, D.C., working with scholars there as well as in Moscow. She says Sewanee has prepared her well for the position: “The international relations training I received at Sewanee was cutting-edge and the mentorship I received from my professors in the politics and Russian departments and from Ambassador Brigety is unparalleled. I really cannot thank them enough.”

The fellowships are paid, full-time positions that begin on August 1 and last for approximately one year.

Fults has found her research at Sewanee into Russia’s view of the war on terror to be exciting. “When people ask what I study in college, and I say ‘politics,’ they think about campaigns and elections, but what I really study is international law, armed conflict, and terrorism,” she says.

Fults grew up in Grundy County, and credits part of her success to her community. “No one expects a girl from rural Appalachia to have the opportunity to shape the future of U.S.-Russian relations, but here I am,” said Fults. “I owe so much of my success to Sewanee, but I also owe part of my success to the surrounding community, which taught me the power of grit and resilience.”