UCF Scholar Living a Dream of International Service

UCF Scholar Stephanie Parenti

Stephanie Parenti, a senior McNair Scholar at the University of Central Florida, is one of 20 students nationwide to be awarded this year’s Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship.

The Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship Program provides funding to participants as they are prepared academically and professionally to enter the United States Department of State Foreign Service.  The fellowship provides financial support of up to $40,000 annually to cover tuition, room and board, and living expenses for two years of graduate study in international studies. Parenti will attend Seton Hall University this fall where she will pursue a master’s degree in Diplomacy and International Relations. Upon earning her master’s, she will work as a Foreign Service officer for a minimum of three years as part of her fellowship obligation.

The Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship is funded by the U.S. Department of State and administered by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The fellowship, named to honor one of the most distinguished American diplomats of the latter half of the 20th century, is intended to develop Foreign Service officers (FSOs) dedicated to representing America’s interests abroad. FSOs are posted at any one of more than 265 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions in the Americas, Africa, Europe and Eurasia, East Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.

In addition to her academic accomplishments and service activities, Parenti is in the honors program at UCF, active in Amnesty International, Undergraduate Research Council, and and has interned with the offices of U.S. Senator Bill Nelson and U.S. Representative Alan Grayson.

Parenti, a Political Science major with a concentration in International Relations-Comparative Politics, was one of two students selected from Florida.