Karah Mechlowitz, a public health doctoral student in the social and behavioral sciences concentration at the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions, has received a Boren Fellowship to study Afaan Oromo in Ethiopia for six months.
Boren Awards are an initiative of the U.S. Defense Language and National Security Education Office and are used to fund research and language study proposals by U.S. graduate students in world regions critical to U.S. interests. Mechlowitz will study Oromo in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, while also working on her dissertation research investigating livelihoods, women’s empowerment and child nutrition outcomes in eastern Ethiopia. She is mentored by Sarah McKune, Ph.D., a research associate professor in the PHHP department of environmental and global health.