Bonderman Travel Fellowship

2025 Fellows selected

“Bonderman is a big thing, but it will never be just one big thing… It is made up of an innumerable amount of little moments and interactions and opportunities and landscapes.”

-Drew Pierce-Street (2020 Fellow)

Each year a select group of UW students are provided a rare opportunity to independently travel the world as Bonderman Fellows. David Bonderman, a UW alumnus, created the Bonderman Travel Fellowship in 1995, and it has funded life-changing global journeys for more than 330 students thus far.

We are excited to welcome in the 2025 Bonderman cohort. The 2025 Bonderman Fellows will travel to over thirty countries, spanning five continents collectively. Each fellow will independently explore two to three world regions, traveling in six to nine countries over eight months. The broad vision of the Bonderman is to inspire individual transformation by expanding the fellow’s understanding of themselves and of the complex and interconnected world we live in. With this vision in mind, each fellow designs a unique travel plan without academic study, projects or research.

Bonderman Fellows are encouraged to challenge their assumptions about the places they explore and people they meet during their journeys and instead be open to new discoveries. Increasing our interactions with different people, cultures and places around the world has become increasingly important as technology has accelerated globalization and shaped our digital collective lens on the world. Learning about the world through travel and in-person interactions provides a varied, humane, and complicated understanding of individuals and communities across the world.

About David Bonderman

For more than twenty years UW alumnus David Bonderman annually supported UW students via travel fellowships that ask them to explore, be open to the unexpected, and come to know the world in new and unexpected ways. The University of Washington Bonderman Fellowship expanded its impact in 2017 with a $10 million endowment from David Bonderman.

In December 2024, David Bonderman passed away at the age of 82. UW staff and the community of Bonderman Fellows are grateful for his legacy and generosity.

Applying to the Bonderman Travel Fellowship

UW graduate students, professional students, and undergraduate students are eligible to apply for the Bonderman Travel Fellowship. The application process includes a travel statement, a proposed itinerary, and an interview with a selection committee composed of University of Washington faculty and staff, as well as former Bonderman Fellows. For more information, visit https://bonderman.uw.edu/applying/.

About the 2025 Fellows

Regions and countries to be explored:

Albania, Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, Oman, Peru, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand, Türkiye, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and more!

While Bonderman Fellows don’t do research or study during their journeys, their travel interests are diverse. Below are some of the interests of the 2025 cohort:

  • Non-digital knowledge preservation
  • Intersections of craft, tradition, and identity
  • The global Black experience
  • Community and social connection through fitness, healthcare, and urban development

Undergraduate Fellows

Aliya Adan
Bachelor of Arts in Sociology & American Ethnic Studies, minor in Diversity
Hometown: Seattle, WA

Aliya is from South Seattle, Washington, and is a first-generation Somali American. As an undergraduate, she conducted independent research on gun violence in Black immigrant communities, exploring its social determinants and lived impacts. Her Bonderman Fellowship proposal centers on identity—examining how she navigates multiple cultural worlds as the child of immigrants and what that reveals about belonging in an ever-changing global society. Aliya selected Turkey, Kenya, Malaysia, Indonesia, Oman, Morocco, China, and Brazil—countries where she would feel safe traveling solo.

Remi Alidon
Bachelor of Arts in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures & Law, Societies and Justice
Hometown: Gardena, California

Remi’s Bonderman journey will be an opportunity to explore the unique intersection of her passions for justice and Near Eastern civilizations. She plans to immerse herself in Eastern societies to better understand their cultures and specifically, their perspectives on justice and punishment. Remi will also engage with Indigenous communities whose traditions have significantly shaped restorative justice practices. Motivated by a commitment to finding alternatives to punitive systems and mass incarceration, she hopes to bring back culturally grounded insights to inform and enrich restorative justice efforts at home. Through this experience, Remi aims to enhance her cultural competency and understand other justice systems through the real lived experiences of individuals across diverse communities.

Marisa Brunelli
Bachelor of Science in Public Health – Global Health, minor in Statistics
Hometown: Pullman, WA

After years of defining herself through productivity, Marisa is now trying to unlearn the idea that worth is earned by work. By travelling to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Rwanda, Eswatini, Malawi, and the Republic of the Congo, she hopes to be immersed in cultures that center community care and interdependence. Marisa is drawn to places that value collectivism and biodiversity, and is curious about how environmental conditions shape public health and daily life. She hopes to eat well, rest deeply, and return home with lessons to carry into her mutual aid work and life beyond the fellowship.

Shannon Cosgrove
Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies Major (Honors), minor in International Studies
Hometown: Port Angeles, WA

Shannon sees the Bonderman Fellowship as an invitation to get beautifully lost, a chance to wander slowly through East Asia and Eastern Europe, guided by curiosity, care, and a deep love of the unfamiliar. These are places she has dreamed of and read about for much of her life, drawn to their layered histories, living cultures, and vibrant landscapes. Committed to sustainability, she will travel by train, bus, and ferry whenever possible. Along the way, she will seek both human connection and feline companionship in regions known for their spirited street cats. Her days will unfold in hostels and homestays, across library steps and mountain paths, in pickup soccer games and quiet conversations. This journey is not about checklists. It is about softening, stretching, and discovering the self that only the world can reveal.

Aaliyah Garinga
Bachelor of Fine Arts (with honors)
Hometown: Tacoma, WA

Aaliyah’s Bonderman Fellowship journey is a commitment to slowing down and learning from the unfamiliar. Her travels will take her through Ecuador, Peru, Nepal, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. She is drawn to places where tradition and transformation meet, and where resilience takes many forms. Through this journey, she hopes to challenge her assumptions, deepen her capacity for empathy, and explore what it means to build a sense of home in movement. Above all, she sees this time as an invitation to listen—closely, patiently, and with an open heart.

Valeria Hernandez-Miranda
Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration – Marketing & Human Resources Management, minor in Labor Studies
Hometown: Bothell, WA

Valeria’s pursuit of the Bonderman Fellowship was sparked by a desire to engage with communities where cultural and environmental stewardship are inseparable. She selected these countries for their rich traditions of sustaining identity through collective care for land and spirit. Through observing the spirituality and resilience present in these places and how they strengthen or reinvigorate love and personal responsibility for one’s environment, Valeria seeks to learn how to build more reciprocal relationships—with both people and the land—that can inform her lifelong commitment to education and community empowerment. Each place on her itinerary offers an invitation to witness and honor different ways of pushing past survival to a state of belonging and thriving.

Juan Miguel Jocom
Bachelor of Arts in Communication (Journalism) & Anthropology
Hometown: Pampanga, Philippines

Born in the Philippines and now based in Seattle, Juan is a journalist and storyteller driven by empathy, curiosity, and a commitment to equity. He reports on underrepresented communities with a focus on drag, queer culture, and social justice. Through the Bonderman Fellowship, Juan hopes to explore how news is disseminated and consumed in rural, mountainous communities, from the Andes to Central Asia. He is also interested in how these communities define success, and how platonic male relationships are expressed across cultures. He believes in the power of human-centered storytelling to foster connection across borders and experiences.

Luke Jouflas
Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science, Bachelor of Arts in Political Science
Hometown: Enumclaw, WA

Luke will explore indigenous nomadic and hunting societies across Central Asia and South America. He is keenly interested in how the developed world’s lack of tradition and myths that orient one to the environment, coming of age, etc., have affected the culture and goals of modern societies. In this journey he will juxtapose both differences within countries (e.g. Beijing vs Manchu People in China) as well as differences between Western civilization and these indigenous societies.

Olivia Kaiaua
Bachelor of Science in Oceanography, minor in Oceania & Pacific Islander Studies
Hometown: Renton, WA

Olivia’s journey is rooted in her Kiribati heritage and the deep ties her community holds with the ocean. As rising sea levels threaten her island, she feels a responsibility to understand how coastal communities around the world are responding to climate change. Guided by a desire to go beyond labs and classrooms, Olivia seeks to learn directly from the people whose lives are intertwined with the water and how these people are navigating loss and resilience in a changing world. Through this journey, Olivia hopes to cultivate a global perspective that will shape her future work in environmental policy and advocacy.

Jonatan Rios-Magallanes
Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration – Supply Chain Management, Bachelor of Science in Real Estate
Hometown: Kent, WA

For Jonatan’s Bonderman fellowship proposal, he plans to explore his cultural identity by studying how movement and fitness are used across cultures to build community, foster resilience, and express identity. As a first generation Latino college student who grew up feeling disconnected from his roots, Jonatan hopes to use this journey to explore his own heritage, challenge his sense of self, and grow interculturally. Through this journey, Jonatan’s goals are to grow in self confidence, embrace new perspectives, and find a clearer sense of self, grounded in a deeper understanding of the world and its many cultures.

Rachel Gardner Willson
Bachelor of Arts in Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies
Hometown: Issaquah, WA

Rachel has never experienced international travel and is excited to have the privilege to dive headfirst into seeing the world. As a student who wants to pursue a career in the law, she is eager to witness life outside the United States and is keen to inquire about how justice systems can ensure global equity. She has planned her itinerary around visiting locations affected by colonialism and histories of revolution. In addition to her curiosity for the breadth of human stories and experience, she hopes to incorporate a healthy amount of exploration of nature and new environments. Rachel wants to challenge herself to go beyond her comfort zone through her travels and experiences as a Bonderman Fellow. She is thankful for this opportunity for personal growth and the many lessons it will bring.

 

Graduate and Professional Fellows

Headshot photo of 2025 fellow Caitlin Chacon

Caitlin Chacon
Master of Social Work
Hometown: Tacoma, WA

The Bonderman Fellowship will give Caitlin the opportunity to explore herself in various contexts that are unfamiliar while also not having the comfort of immediate, arms-length support. Her travels paint a picture of cultural and self-exploration, how interdependence looks across cultures, and how self-care is conceptualized and practiced in different spaces. She has grown up being told that independence should be a goal, however, she has always been the person to lean on for everyone else in her life. Being a fellow, for Caitlin, has a lot to do with having the opportunity to really focus on filling her own cup: getting to know and understand herself, and bringing those findings back home with her to inform her professional practice, as well as how she would like to operate and be present day to day. She is eager to go to places like Costa Rica, Japan, South Africa, and Kenya to get a glimpse of the land and communities where her family and ancestors once lived. She is also looking forward to exploring places in Greece, Thailand, Peru, and Indonesia to dip her toes into all the different ways of life, cuisine, nature, and ways of forming connection that exist outside of the paradigm(s) that is often taught within the States.

Headshot of Manpreet Dhankhar

Manpreet Dhankhar
PhD Student, Health Economics & Outcomes Research
Hometown: Chalfont, PA

Manpreet’s travel goals are rooted in a desire to explore how craft, tradition, and identity intersect across cultures. With a background in pottery and textiles, she is particularly interested in how everyday creative practices are woven into the rhythms of daily life and how they reflect care, memory, and cultural preservation. She hopes her Bonderman experience will strengthen her ability to communicate and connect with others from different backgrounds and broaden her understanding of what it means to live responsibly in a globally connected world. Her current proposed itinerary includes Vietnam, Thailand, India, South Korea, Japan, Cambodia, Argentina, and Chile.

Headshot of Maza HailuMaza Hailu
Master of Science, Human Centered Design & Engineering
Hometown: Seattle, WA

Maza’s Bonderman journey is driven by her passion for storytelling and the arts. She’s deeply curious about the ways race, history, and identity are expressed across cultures and how those stories connect us. As an undergraduate, studying abroad in Ecuador opened her eyes to the transformative power of cultural immersion. It was the first time she truly saw what it meant to explore identity beyond U.S. borders. Now, as a first-generation Ethiopian American, she is eager to deepen her understanding of her own diasporic identity while engaging with communities in Africa, Asia, and South America. Through this journey, Maza hopes to challenge and broaden her understanding of the global Black experience and build meaningful connections through art, dialogue, and shared stories.

Headshot of Christina Harris

Christina Harris
Master of Public Health, Community-Oriented Public Health Practice
Hometown: Omaha, NE

Christina pursued the Bonderman Fellowship as an opportunity to continue learning outside the classroom. In their travels, they are excited to immerse themselves in new cultures, exploring how people around the world build their environments, share food, and care for one another. Christina looks forward to stepping outside the individualistic culture of the United States to experience ways of living that prioritize community, connection, and collective well-being. Through journeys to Mongolia, Taiwan, Timor-Leste, Chile, and Peru, they hope to deepen their understanding of how place and culture shape relationships, and to bring those lessons into their own efforts to build and nurture community.

Headshot of Riley Kovacs

Riley Kovacs
Master of Social Work
Hometown: Olympia, WA

Riley’s Bonderman journey is inspired by his experiences working in education and mental health, where he witnessed firsthand the consequences of the increasing isolation and social atomization facing youth and young adults in the United States. In his travels through Latin America and Southeast Asia, he seeks to understand new models of community and social connection—to see what sustains, shelters, and gives meaning and belonging to people around the world. Through new stories, perspectives, and experiences abroad, he hopes to better nurture community and connection at home in both his personal life and clinical practice.

Headshot of Porter Lance

Porter Lance
Master of Fine Arts, Drama Design
Hometown: Wichita Falls, TX

Porter is eager to understand the world through art and design and is passionate about seeking out culturally specific visual communication. Throughout life’s changes and challenges, Porter has consistently found connection and community through art and hopes to do the same with his travels to Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Nepal, India, Oman, Turkey, and Georgia. Growing up in America, which often values art as a product and not a cultural bond, Porter hopes to reestablish his relationship with art as both a process and an opportunity, connect with other artists, and learn to communicate across cultural boundaries through art and design.

Headshot of Liz Landeche

Elizabeth Landeche
Master of Library & Information Science
Hometown: Phenix City, AL

Elizabeth plans to explore how communities around the world preserve and share knowledge through non-digital means like oral storytelling, fiber arts, and performance. She is especially interested in how these practices express identity, transmit memory, and adapt over time. Her journey will take her to Costa Rica, Argentina, Brazil, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Tunisia, and Morocco. As someone with a background in knowledge organization and information management, she’s drawn to the lived, embodied ways people make meaning. Elizabeth hopes this experience will challenge how she understands “information” and help her grow in humility, creativity, and cross-cultural understanding.

Headshot of Samsam Mohamud

Samsam Mohamud
Master of Science, Human Centered Design & Engineering
Hometown: Seattle, WA

Samsam is interested in how tea traditions across former Silk Road regions foster connection, care, and belonging. Growing up, she watched her mother prepare and share tea during moments of celebration, comfort, and everyday life. What once seemed like a simple routine later became a source of profound comfort and connection for Samsam during graduate school. This realization has inspired her to explore how tea and similar practices foster relationships across cultures in Asia and the Balkans. Through this journey, she hopes to cultivate greater patience, presence, and an appreciation for the quiet ways we connect in daily life.