ALBION, Mich. — The prestigious George J. Mitchell Scholarship, nicknamed the “Irish Rhodes” in the U.S., recently announced that Albion College senior Catherine Fontana is one of twelve Mitchell Scholars chosen for 2008-2009. An English and biology major at Albion, Fontana will spend the next academic year at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, pursuing a master's degree in environmental science.

“Given my environmental management research here in the United States, I am beyond thrilled to expand my experiences and research scope to Ireland and the European Union next year,” said Fontana. “All of the finalists were dually qualified for this award, and I feel remarkably fortunate to have been chosen to study in Dublin next year.”

Fontana’s Albion career has been distinguished in both academic and leadership achievements. President of the Student Senate during her junior year, Fontana also served as president of the Albion College Democrats and the Michigan Federation of College Democrats and currently holds a leadership position with the national College Democrats of America Women’s Caucus. Her political career began in 2005 when she became a graduate of the Michigan State University Institute for Public Policy and Social Research’s “Tomorrow’s Political Leaders” program. Later in 2005, Fontana served as an international intertidal scientist and United States delegate to the Schutzstation Wattenmeer in Hallig Hooge, Germany to aid in invertebrate data collection and German-English translations of science literature. In 2006, Fontana won a competitive Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Network for Environmental Management Studies fellowship researching facilities’ compliance with the Clean Air Act. This past summer, she served as a Volunteer for Science to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to conduct thesis work at Walden Pond State Reservation in Massachusetts and jointly studied international environmental energy policy at Harvard University. Throughout her time at Albion, Fontana received two Albion College Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (FURSCA) stipends to conduct independent research in the fields of parasitology and microbiology. As current president of Albion’s Mortar Board chapter, Fontana helped organize a 2007 Homecoming book drive that netted over 1,100 books donated to Albion’s public library and elementary schools.

Fontana is also pursuing academic concentrations in the Gerald R. Ford Institute for Public Policy and Service, the Institute for the Study of the Environment, and the Prentiss M. Brown Honors Institute. She is the daughter of Michael Fontana of Ann Arbor and Susan Millington of Dearborn and a graduate of Dearborn Divine Child High School.

The George J. Mitchell Scholarship is named for former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell who spearheaded the historic Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which produced peace in Northern Ireland. The Mitchell Scholarship program recognizes outstanding young Americans who exhibit the highest standards of academic excellence, leadership and community service.

This year’s recipients also include the Duke University’s newspaper editor whose coverage of the Duke lacrosse scandal won him and the paper universal praise, an intellectual property specialist and distinguished musician and composer, an accomplished genetic researcher who has helped to discover a tumor-suppressor gene, and a dedicated anti-poverty advocate who has spent his years at Georgetown in Washington DC’s neediest neighborhoods.

The 2007 Mitchell Award Selection Committee included former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake; National Book Award winner Alice McDermott; former State Department official and internet health leader and CEO Chris Schroeder; Ireland’s Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Collins, Dr. Robert Clarke, a leading cancer expert at Georgetown who is a native of Northern Ireland; former head of Amnesty International William Schulz; Irish venture capitalist Gerry McCrory; Maureen Murphy, Dean of the School of Education and Irish historian at Hofstra; and Jasmin Weaver, a 2004 Mitchell Scholar who is currently working in the Budget Office at Harvard University.

More than 300 applicants from 139 institutions applied for the 2008-09 Mitchell Award. “Across the nation, the George Mitchell Scholarship has clearly emerged as one of the most desirable fellowships in the world,” said Trina Vargo, president of the US-Ireland Alliance, executors of the Award. “We are delighted by this development because it fulfills the vision of the program – to bring the most talented young leaders in the nation to the island of Ireland for a year of immersion in Irish academia, life, and culture as a way of building strong relationships between our countries.”

 For more information on the 2008 Mitchell Scholars, visit the US-Ireland Web site, http://www.us-irelandalliance.org/wmspage.cfm?parm1=73.