Stories

Jasmine Vu '26, a chemistry major, has been selected for a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to conduct research in Switzerland.

From Santa Cruz, California, Jasmine has a knack for finding connections where others see separate things. Growing up, she explored her creativity through crocheting and filmmaking. At Santa Clara, she channeled that same curiosity into research and into co-founding ARTopia alongside Baldemor, where she teaches traditional and digital art to local kids and makes a point of showing them how coding and artistic thinking reinforce each other.

Her Fulbright Research Award will take her to the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, where she will join Paul Dyson’s inorganic chemistry lab to study heat-activated prodrugs for targeting pediatric eye cancer. The work sits at the intersection of chemistry and medicine, precisely the kind of cross-disciplinary territory Vu has always gravitated toward.

Vu was also selected for the Lafayette Young Leaders Program, France’s newest and most competitive early-career fellowship, considered a peer to the Marshall Scholarship. At Santa Clara, she has conducted research in the Ben Stokes Lab, been recognized as a Clare Boothe Luce Research Scholar and a Strauss Scholar, and served as Associate Director of the Santa Clara Community Action Program and co-president of Hooks for Hope.

“I am so honored to receive this award,” said Vu. “I would like to thank the office of student fellowships, the chemistry department, and my mentors Ben Stokes, Megan Tichy, and Jeffrey Burkholder for their support through the years. I’m so excited to go to Switzerland this fall to study chemotherapeutic drug activation in pediatric eye cancer in the Dyson lab!"

About The Fulbright Program
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards approximately 2,000 grants annually in all fields of study. Recent graduates and graduate students undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and primary and secondary teaching worldwide.  Founded in 1946, 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. For further information please visit https://us.fulbrightonline.org/.