Dylan is a recent graduate of Brown University with an ScB in biochemistry and molecular biology (with honors). He is pursuing research in the Neuropeptide Lab at the University of Vienna under the Fulbright-Marshall Plan Foundation Award. Dylan's project investigates the oxytocin and vasopressin signaling systems and potential therapeutic targets.

Michaela Polley graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, in June 2023 with a bachelor's in mathematics and chemistry along with a minor in public policy. As a full-time research grantee with Fulbright Austria this year, Michaela's work is focused on a field of math known as enumerative combinatoric. More specifically, she will be studying rectangulations and their connections to permutation patterns. Michaela also looks forward to getting involved in the community through church and swimming.

Amanda Riggenbach is a combined grantee completing master’s coursework at the University of Vienna, a US teaching assistantship, and an oral history project examining the impact of Austrian Victim Thesis on the descendants of Shoah survivors. She is a 2019 Illinois Community College graduate and a 2021 Bradley University graduate. She has a bachelor of arts in English and psychology, graduating summa cum laude. Prior to graduation, Amanda was awarded the Outstanding Senior in English Award and inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi Academic Hall of Fame.

Following her university graduation, Amanda was selected to become the project manager of "Tumultuous 2020" at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. There, she traveled Illinois to document the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on everyday Illinoisans through oral-history interviews. Following the project's completion, Amanda began working as a museum educator at the Peoria Riverfront Museum, where she interpreted museum exhibition content through programs and educational events. She also restarted the museum’s oral-history program to bring peoples’ experiences and stories to the summer 2023 exhibition, "Heart."

Prior to beginning the Fulbright grant, Amanda worked as the youth employment program coordinator for the City of Peoria, where she managed the mayor’s youth internship program. For her work, she was awarded the Mayor’s Leadership Award.

Having studied molecular, cellular, and developmental biology alongside musicology, Jagienka has cultivated a passion for studying human health through both a scientific and a humanistic lens. Her current work focuses on immune cell responses with spider silk used for nerve regeneration in plastic surgery, a field in which she has worked both at the University of Michigan and Medizinische Hochschule Hannover on a DAAD research scholarship. Jagienka has come to Austria pursuing her interests scientifically and her passion for learning about people through cultural immersion and language learning. Upon her return to the US, Jagienka will matriculate to Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, where she plans to continue her studies in medicine and investigate further prospects in integrative healthcare informed by robust scientific work, cultural awareness, and a holistic lens.

David Bassuk is a professor of theater, transmedia, and immersive narrative and experience design including game design and location-based technology.

David specializes in creatively exploring spatial storytelling in live and virtual settings. He has worked between academia and creative industries in entertainment venues and heritage sites, working with interaction designers and creative technologists in projects grounded on the multi-disciplinary potentials of narrative and audience/player engagement.

As a professor of acting in the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Purchase College, State University of New York, he directs in the professional acting programs and mentors students in stage directing, creative writing, and designing experimental performance. As the creative director of White Horse Immersive in Hangzhou, China, David has developed a number of large projects with Alibaba and Tencent’s animation studio. David is also a visiting teacher at the Multiverse Institute of Technology (MIAT) in Milan, Italy, teaching courses in spatial narrative, transmedia, and immersive worldbuilding.

Current projects include working with the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) designing a project called “Futurers 2050” played across ten cities in Iraq with others, and David formed the impact experience design consultancy “Order of the Wild,” working internationally on climate education and activism.

A versatile musician, Anné-Marie Condacse appeared as a recitalist and concert artist throughout the United States of America, Italy, France, Mexico, Egypt, Romania, and Israel. Commended for her expressive singing and remarkable stage presence, Anné-Marie’s operatic performance credits include Corinna (Il Viaggio a Reims), Violetta (La Traviata), Musetta (La Bohème), Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), Blöndchen (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel), Ofelia (Hamlet), Cécile de Volanges (Dangerous Liaisons), Adele (Die Fledermaus), and Monica (The Medium). Her concert performances include the soprano solo in Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri, Haydn’s Harmoniemesse, Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis, Mozart’s Krönungsmesse, Mozart’s Requiem, Händel’s Messiah, Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem, and Poulenc’s Gloria. Her discography has been released by Blue Griffin and Electrecord records. Anné-Marie earned her doctor of musical arts in vocal performance from the Moores School of Music, University of Houston, and her master of music in vocal performance from the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University. A Fulbright scholar, Anné-Marie served as professor of opera studies at the Cairo National Conservatoire of Music. Anné-Marie is professor of vocal studies at Oklahoma State University, where she received the First Lady of OSU Distinguished Professor of Music Award.

Ben Davidson is currently a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society and is also the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship to teach at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg in Spring 2024. Ben received his PhD from New York University, and he previously served as the Henry Fairbanks Visiting Scholar at Saint Michael’s College in Vermont. His current book manuscript, Freedom’s Generation: Coming of Age in the Era of Emancipation, traces the lives of Black and white children from across the nation who grew up during the Civil War era. He is also working on projects about intersections between Jewish emancipation and the abolition of slavery and on the Freedman's Savings Bank.

In 2022, Haleigh Drew graduated from Boston University, where she majored in philosophy and linguistics. After several years of studying Spanish, she surprised herself by signing up for German classes in college and was immediately fascinated by the language and the culture of the countries that speak it. After completing her first year as a teaching assistant in Styria, Haleigh is thrilled to be working in the nation’s capital of Vienna. Originally from New Hampshire, she spends her free time running, skiing, and listening to true-crime podcasts. Haleigh is excited to be working with students in Austrian schools for a second year and looks forward to completing her goal of visiting the Hauptstadt of all nine of Austria's Bundesländer!