Penn Student Awarded Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship

Penn junior Jhohanna Perez has been awarded the CIEE Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship, a fully funded, four-week leadership program for students of color that is set in Ireland and focused on peace, social justice, and conflict resolution. Jhohanna was selected as one of the 16 Fellows from more than 700 applicants who were chosen based on their demonstrated leadership and communication skills, and their commitment to agitating for positive social change

Jhohanna was born in the Dominican Republic and currently resides in New Jersey. She is studying neuroscience in the School of Arts and Sciences, and is currently enrolled in a Penn Global Seminar, for which she will be traveling to Mongolia to explore nomadic traditions as they relate to modern society. Her international focus and commitment to positive social change has been a significant part of her work and engagement at Penn and beyond. Jhohanna has become an active member of the global community through her co-presidency in Penn’s Global Brigades chapter and her participation in Paper Airplanes. As a Penn recipient of the Hassenfeld Foundation Social Impact Research Grant, she founded a human rights summer program for high school students during her time as co-president of AACT, Awareness Against Current Transgressions. Through these projects, Jhohanna has served communities outside of Penn by presenting care packages to Uyghur refugees and Kazakhstan and establishing vocational training for orphanages in Yemen.

As Jhohanna looks forward to becoming more involved in the social impact sphere as a participant of the Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship, she is eager to learn more about injustice and conflict resolution as she converses with leaders in the field. More than anything, she hopes to apply what she learns in this fellowship to her current social endeavors.