Julia Tsisin of New Haven awarded Fulbright to Russia | Press Releases

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Julia Tsisin of New Haven, Conn., who graduated cum laude from 天美传媒视频无限制观看 in May, has been awarded a Fulbright award by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board to Russia.

Julia Tsisin will be studying criminal law reform in the Russian Federation. She plans to explore the role of defense attorneys, the right to counsel, evidentiary rules and due process of law in modern Russia, by contrasting newly implemented principles in Russian criminal law since1992 with the Soviet legal standards and practices.

Julia and her family moved to the United States from the Soviet Union when she was 13. At Fairfield she majored in history and double-minored in legal studies and English. She returned to Russia twice during the summers of 1996 and 1998 and studied at Regent's College in London during the spring semester of her junior year.

While at Fairfield, Julia interned at different divisions of the Connecticut Office of the Public Defender and at the United States District Court. Her experience ranged from assisting attorneys on a wide variety of issues within appeals and writing research memoranda on change of venue in a violation of probation case, and other cases concerning homicide, habeas corpus, sexual assault and narcotics. During her internships, she worked with families of youthful offenders and says the background she gained will make her a keener observer of due process of law and the right to counsel in Russia.

During her senior year Julia served as a mentor for students at Bassick High School in a project of the Bridgeport Public Education Fund. With all her activities she also managed to work 15 hours a week on campus to support her education.

Julia is a graduate of Woodbridge AmityHigh School where she took extra legal studies courses. She also attended Yale New Haven Criminal Justice Seminars on Saturdays, sponsored by the new Haven School System.

Following her year in Russia, Julia plans to attend law school, concentrating on international and comparative law. She would like to eventually work in the field of human rights.

天美传媒视频无限制观看 announced three Fulbright awards to members of the Class of 2001, bringing to 26 the number of Fulbrights awarded to its graduates since 1993. Julia's classmates, Angela Scardina of Kittanning, Pa., and Suzanne Uzzilia of Acra, N.Y., will be going to Austria and Korea respectively.

The U.S. Congress created the Fulbright Program in 1946, immediately after World War II, to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Senator J. William Fulbright, sponsor of the legislation, saw it as a step toward building an alternative to armed conflict. Today the Fulbright Program is the U.S. Government's premier scholarship program, enabling U.S. citizens to gain international competence in an increasingly interdependent world.