Two recent Whitman College graduates have been awarded the Bassett Traveling Fellowship, which gives selected Whitties the opportunity to pursue a modified version of their Watson Fellowship proposal. With a grant of $12,000, the fellowship will support Ruth IIyambo ’26 and Ishaan Swami ’26 in exploring their passions on a global scale and taking their learning out into the world after graduation.
Ruth Iiyambo ’26, a Davis United World College Scholar from Namibia, will travel to Ghana, Namibia and Kenya to study sustainable solutions to human-wildlife conflict. Her double major in Computer Science and Economics has helped inform her knowledge about creative and cost-effective solutions. Her project, spanning three countries, will investigate the growing tensions between agricultural land and wild elephants.
Ishaan Swami ’26, a Geology+French major with a concentration in Global Studies from Tustin, California, is headed to Mongolia to carry out his project “Ethnogeology: Myth and Landscape.” Swami will be working closely with Erjen Khamaganova at the World Union of Indigenous Spiritual Practitioners to study the way that stories are connected to the land and to help create a digital atlas of sacred places.
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