Emily Brodie

Emily, a student of the Western Honors Program, received the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship and traveled to Spain. Childhood experiences initially piqued her interest in travel and botany and taught her to see the value of a commitment to curiosity and education. She traveled to research flora and butterflies in Panama, Nicaragua, and Argentina, and became a Botany technician and monitored sensitive species affected by the 2013 Rim Fire in California. In 2015, Emily won a Fulbright to Spain and worked in the Royal Botanic Garden annotating historical botanic sources. She used her experience with and understanding of Spanish to help students achieve fluency through cultural curiosity, as well as improve her classroom management skills and enhance language education in her schools, culminating in creating and implementing a Model UN debate program in a public high school.