Two Pitt Students Awarded Humanity in Action Fellowships

PITTSBURGH—Two students from the University of Pittsburgh’s Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences have been awarded 2015 Humanity in Action Fellowships. Pitt junior Robert A. Tessier and graduating senior Audrey-Marie H. Winn will conduct social-science and humanitarian-based research in the European cities of Warsaw and Amsterdam, respectively, during the summer of 2015. With the addition of Tessier and Winn, Pitt students have now won 15 Humanity in Action Fellowships in the last 20 years.

The Humanity in Action Fellowship program brings together international groups of university students and recent graduates to explore topics related to discrimination and social resistance as well as issues affecting underrepresented groups around the world. Fellows are selected on the basis of high academic achievement, evidence of leadership ability, and demonstrated commitment to human rights issues. For 2015, Humanity in Action has accepted 43 fellows from 36 U.S. colleges and universities, who will join students and recent graduates from higher education institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, and Ukraine.
 
A native of Sparta, N.J.,  Robert A. Tessier is majoring in neuroscience and sociology. His long-term career ambitions include becoming a physician and working as a public health advocate for underserved populations, both in the United States and abroad.

Tessier has been active with a wide range of public health service organizations throughout his time at Pitt. He currently serves as the vice president for the Pitt chapter of the nonprofit health organization MEDLIFE. Through the organization, he has assisted the staff of a mobile health clinic with serving the medical needs of impoverished communities in Lima, Peru, and he has spearheaded initiatives to educate college students in Pittsburgh on matters of public health. Tessier also has served as the vice president for the Pitt chapter of the Delta Chi Fraternity and as a health aide volunteer in the Hospital Elder Life Program at UPMC Shadyside.

Since enrolling at Pitt in 2012, he has assisted with research in the laboratories of faculty members within Pitt’s neuroscience and psychiatry departments. His current research focuses on human memory.

As a Pitt student, Tessier has been honored with the University of Pittsburgh Academic Scholarship, an Undergraduate Research Program Fellowship from Pitt’s Conte Center for Translational Mental Health Research, and a University Honors College Brackenridge Undergraduate Fellowship.

A native of Pine Grove, Pa., Audrey-Marie H. Winn will receive a bachelor’s degree in Chinese, English writing, and philosophy from the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. Next fall, she will enter New York University School of Law under the Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholarship. She plans to pursue a career related to international law, global labor policy, and workers’ rights advocacy.

Winn currently serves as a policy-analyst intern at the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit organization. Within the organization, her duties include investigating corporate fraud at the international level and translating factory workers’ testimonials and field reports.

Winn has been actively engaged in projects related to global humanitarianism and international labor policies, both locally and abroad. In the fall of 2014, through Pitt’s University Honors College’s Brackenridge Undergraduate Fellowship, she examined the effects of corporate withdrawal on employment opportunities in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood. During the summer of 2014, she counseled litigants with limited English proficiency while volunteering with the American Civil Liberties Union. That same summer, she conducted a large-scale research project in London, focusing on the history of corporate espionage in the United Kingdom.

Most recently, Winn was honored with Pitt’s 2015 Emma Locke Award, which annually recognizes a graduating Pitt senior who has displayed high scholarship, character, and devotion to the ideals of the University. Her other notable awards and distinctions includes the 2014 Mary Ellen Callahan Research Award and the 2014 G. Alec Stewart Student Achievement Award, both from Pitt’s University Honors College.

Tessier and Winn were nominated for the Humanity in Action Fellowships with assistance from Pitt’s University Honors College, which advises Pitt undergraduate students and alumni who are interested in pursuing national and international awards. Past fellows have used their experiences to further careers in education, civil service, journalism, law, and art.

Established in 1997, Humanity in Action is an international educational organization that seeks to promote human rights, diversity, and active citizenship around the world.

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