Grace Maloney, a May 2021 graduate with a triple major in molecular and cellular biology, chemistry and Spanish, is among nine UIUC students and recent graduates who have received Fulbright grants.

Maloney will serve as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in the city of Vigo in Galicia, Spain.

A graduate of St. Charles (Ill.) East High School, at the U of I she was a member of the Campus Honors Program and a James Scholar, and experienced a summer studying abroad in Chile. Maloney has spent several years as a camp counselor and a bilingual elementary school tutor, in addition to teaching college students in leadership and chemistry courses. She also served for two years as a reporter for the Daily Illini student newspaper.

As an aspiring physician, Maloney said she hopes to investigate how minority languages are treated within Spain's highly ranked health care system.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the flagship international educational exchange program of the U.S. government. The program awards grants to students based on their academic and professional achievement, as well as their demonstrated leadership potential. The program will fund approximately 2,200 U.S. citizens to travel abroad for the 2021-22 academic year. Many of the 2021-22 recipients were awarded Fulbright grants in 2020 but were unable to travel due to the global pandemic.