Meixi Ng adds to her list of honors by winning the 2010 Circumnavigators Club Foundation Around-the-World Travel-Study Grant. She is the first School of Education and Social Policy student to win the fellowship, presented each year to a Northwestern University junior.
This summer she will travel the globe on her project "Education as Transformation: The Power of Schools." She will visit schools that are focusing on transformative education in marginalized communities, seeking to find best practices and guiding principles that can then be shared in a broader context. She has an itinerary that includes spending time at schools in Guatemala, Singapore, Ghana, South Africa, Australia and many other countries.
"I know that she will be a remarkable ambassador for Northwestern," says Richard Braeutigam, Northwestern University associate provost.
Ng received the award of $9,000 on January 8 from members of the Chicago Chapter of the Circumnavigator's Club. Each year since 2003 the organization has selected and sponsored one Northwestern student for an around-the-world travel research project over the summer after junior year. The research project is documented through formal papers, presentations and web pages, and the winner also speaks at Circumnavigators Foundation banquets.
Ng has also been honored recently by being selected as a Goldman Sachs Global Leaders program. This highly competitive program provides leadership development to academically excellent students who demonstrate outstanding leadership potential. Ng was one of 16 students across the nation to receive the award.
A campus leader, Ng has co-founded several organizations at Northwestern, including the Northwestern Engagement Coalition, the International Students Association and the Northwestern World Cup, which she also directed. In the wider community, Ng co-founded The Amber Initiative, a youth-led organization dedicated to fight human trafficking through building the capacity of educational spaces around the world.
"I feel so so honored to be able to do this — it's a dream come true for me," says Ng.