Two doctoral students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania have been selected for the Emergency Student Fund Award from the Institute of International Education Emergency Fund.

This brings the total to seven IUP international students who have been selected for IIE funds during the pandemic from a pool of national applicants. The competitive scholarship requires nomination from the host institution.

Recipients are Sayed Ali Reza Ahmadi, from Balkh, Afghanistan, a Composition and Applied Linguistics student, and Zeina Fakhreddine, from Lebanon, a Communications Media student.

Now living in Indiana, Ahmadi was a university lecturer in the English Department of Balkh University in Afghanistan. He got his master’s degree in Teaching English to the Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at IUP through a Fulbright scholarship in May 2020. His master’s degree thesis at IUP was selected for the 2020 Graduate Student Outstanding Research Award.

“I am very happy and so grateful for the award, and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the continued support by the IUP Office of International Education and Institute of International Education,” he said. “I profoundly appreciate such academic support and generosity on my higher education journey at IUP.”

Ahmadi was also awarded a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at the University of Georgia in the US in the 2014–15 academic year, where he was teaching Farsi/Dari undergrad courses and auditing graduate-level courses.

In addition, Ahmadi was invited and sponsored for the South Asian TESOL Affiliates’ Leadership Training Workshop by the US Embassy in India in 2016. Ahmadi was validated as a master trainer by the British Council in Sri Lanka to train English teachers across Afghanistan in core skills, management, and leadership in education.

Ahmadi founded Seraar International English Language Academy in Afghanistan and served as a general director in 2012. It was the time when he was also serving as a North Zone volunteer coordinator for Afghan University Students’ Exchange Program, led by Asia Foundation and the US Embassy in Afghanistan.