University of Notre Dame alumna Jessica Ashman and graduate student Maria Caterina “Cat” Gargano have been selected as Fulbright-John Lewis Civil Rights Fellows for the 2024-25 academic year.

Established through bipartisan legislation in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, the Fulbright-John Lewis Civil Rights Fellowship honors the legacy of the late civil rights leader and lawmaker, who served 33 years in the House of Representatives.

The fellowship, awarded to select Fulbright U.S. Student Program finalists, provides expanded learning opportunities to enable participants to enhance the reach and impact of their Fulbright experience, and to promote studies, research and international exchange on nonviolent movements that establish and protect civil rights around the world.

This inaugural group of fellows represents the diversity of the United States through their backgrounds and experiences, and as researchers in a range of academic disciplines. They will carry out research in 23 countries.

President Joe Biden announced the cohort during the Annual Legislative Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

“I’m excited to announce tonight that we have selected the first class of Fulbright-John Lewis Civil Rights Fellows, who will learn how to establish and protect freedom and justice and equity, not just at home but around the world,” Biden said.

Ashman graduated from Notre Dame in May with two degrees: a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from the College of Arts and Letters, and a Bachelor of Arts in global affairs, with a concentration in international development studies, from the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, which is part of the Keough School of Global Affairs. She minored in Latino Studies.

Originally from Maryland, Ashman is passionate about topics related to sociocultural identity and its intersections with human development. She strongly believes in the power of social science research to generate informed solutions to complex problems.

As an undergraduate, she conducted independent research into issues related to colorism, anti-Haitianism, national identity and education in the Dominican Republic with support from Karen Richman, director of undergraduate academic programs at the Institute for Latino Studies and a Kellogg Institute for International Studies faculty fellow. She also worked with Luis Felipe R. Murillo, assistant professor of anthropology and faculty fellow at the Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center, whose work is dedicated to the study of computing from an anthropological perspective.

As a Fulbright-John Lewis Civil Rights Fellow, Ashman is exploring issues related to transnational Blackness and social inclusion in Ecuador. Beyond that, she plans to pursue a doctorate in sociocultural anthropology with the hopes of becoming a research-teaching professor.

Gargano is a doctoral candidate in peace studies and psychology in the Keough School of Global Affairs and College of Arts and Letters, respectively. Within Keough, she is part of both the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. She is a former Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society Graduate Scholar.

Gargano received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a laurea magistrale in protection of human rights and international cooperation from Università di Bologna in Italy. Most recently, she worked with the Psychosocial Innovation Network, a Serbian nongovernmental organization, to found the Consortium of Refugees’ and Migrants’ Mental Health.

Gargano’s research focuses on migration, interpersonal violence and mental health. Her experiences in transit countries have made her particularly interested in developing interventions that are trauma-informed, culturally meaningful and feasible to apply in displacement and other low-resource contexts.

As a dual Fulbright-Garcia Robles and Fulbright-John Lewis Civil Rights Fellow, she is conducting research in Tijuana, Mexico, in support of her dissertation, which focuses on temporal and spatial violence during migration, as well as the nascent psychological literature on transit. Through this, she hopes to deliver actionable insights from people who are migrating to policymakers, practitioners and researchers.

In the long term, she plans to continue her research and advocacy work in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, ideally as a professor of psychology or migration studies.

Ashman worked closely with the Flatley Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement (CUSE), and Gargano with the Graduate School’s Office of Grants and Fellowships, in applying to the Fulbright program.

Emily Hunt is the assistant director of scholarly development at CUSE.

“Congratulations to Jessica and Cat,” Hunt said. “It is an honor for Notre Dame to have two students represented in the inaugural cohort of the Fulbright-John Lewis Civil Rights Fellows program.”