Congratulations to Nina Mesihovic, undergraduate Geography major and departmental honors student, who was recently awarded a Merit Scholarship from the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity (OMAD) for her excellence in academics and beyond, as well as a Mary Gates Research Scholarship through the Center for Experiential Learning and Diversity.
Nina, an immigrant from Bosnia, spent a month last summer in Tahiti, studying the effects and complicated nature of the tourist-based economy in the island nation, noting the stark differences between the beautiful postcard images of the island versus the realities that many residents of Tahiti face in their day-to-day lives. This became the basis for her undergraduate honors thesis, Immigration to Tahiti: Island Policies, Politics, and Problems, in which she is using qualitative research methods to look at the relationship between immigration and environmental issues. Nina’s is also an officer in the student group Relational Poverty Network, in which she is working to integrate the concept of relational poverty and inequality into the UW curriculum.