The US-Ireland Alliance recently announced the 12 members of the George J. Mitchell Scholar Class of 2022. One of the country’s most prestigious scholarship programs, it sends future American leaders to the island of Ireland for a year of graduate study. The scholarship program was named in honor of U.S. Senator George Mitchell’s role as chairman of the Northern Ireland peace talks.
A record number of 453 individuals applied this year – a 22 percent increase over the previous record set two years ago. Half of the semifinalists and half of the finalists were people of color, another record. Four of the 12 Mitchell Scholars this year are African Americans. They will begin their year in Ireland this coming September.
Joy Nesbitt is a senior at Harvard University studying social anthropology and music. She serves as co-president of BlackCAST, where she organizes the annual Black Playwright’s Festival, president of KeyChange, an acapella group focused on performing music from the African diaspora, and as inclusivity chair of the Harvard Black Student Association. As a Mitchell Scholar, Nesbitt will spend the coming academic year studying theatre directing at The Lir Academy of Trinity College Dublin.
Kiran Hampton recently graduated from Harvard University with degrees in history and literature. As the president of Harvard Radio Broadcasting, he ran a 24/7 commercial radio station. He currently works for the NAACP chapter in Fairfax, Virginia. Hampton will study economics at Queen’s University Belfast. After completing his year in Ireland, Hampton plans to enroll at Harvard Law School.
Meghan Davis is a senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she is double majoring in biological engineering and urban planning. Currently, she is conducting research on a mixed-methods approach to understand the cardiovascular disease disparities in urban Black women and interventions that can be implemented to reduce these disparities. Davis hopes to become a physician-scientist. She will study global health at Trinity College Dublin.
Tawreak Gamble-Eddington is a senior studying political science and history at Union College in Schenectady, New York. He is president of the Black Student Union and a member of the local chapter of My Brother’s Keeper, President Obama’s mentoring program. Born to African American and Irish American parents, Gamble-Eddington hopes to continue researching his ancestry in Ireland. As a Mitchell Sholar, he will study race, ethnicity, and conflict at Trinity College Dublin.
