Four Brown juniors were selected for the Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship for Public Service. The award is granted to those pursuing a career in public service, and provides over $50,000 worth of scholarships.
Only 100 win the scholarship each year. Each winner has the opportunity to plan a “summer voyage” between their junior and senior years, which allows them to pursue a project in their area of interest within public service. Winners also receive a $2,000 annual travel stipend for 10 years, beyond coaching sessions and networking opportunities.
Maize Cline ’26: Organizing for reproductive justice
Maize Cline ’26 was first pushed towards public service in high school when she served as co-president of her women’s student union. There, she filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education over then-Secretary Betsy DeVos’ Title IX regulations which introduced new measures that were decried by many education and women’s rights organizations.
Title IX is a federal law which prohibits gender discrimination in most educational programs.
The experience “really defined the way I thought about student organizing, the ways I thought about legal engagement with the law and the ways I thought about public service,” she said.
Cline plans to use her scholarship this summer to study the relationship between reproductive justice, culture and politics.
Justin Lim ’26: Preventing rheumatic heart disease
Justin Lim ’26 is no stranger to travel, having grown up in Minnesota and Ethiopia before going to boarding school in Kenya.
Lim plans to use his scholarship to expand upon volunteer work he started during high school. “We’re trying to screen thousands of kids in local schools to see if any of them have early stage rheumatic heart disease,” Lim explained.
Now, Lim hopes to develop an educational program to help students and teachers identify early signs of the disease and how to prevent it. “Long term, we’d love to expand these screening programs to other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Corinne LePage ’26: Investigating the relationship between humans and wildlife
Corinne LePage ’26 had multiple jobs before she came to College Hill. Somewhere along the way, LePage found an interest in the natural world.
An environmental science and Native American and Indigenous studies concentrator, LePage wants to study conflict between humans and animals.
“I want to work with people in communities that have implemented plans to address human-wildlife conflict and work with conservation scientists to see what their roles are in addressing it,” she said.
LePage stressed the importance of addressing the adverse impacts humans have on the environment through sustainable development.
“There's a lot of (issues) that stem from human-wildlife conflict, like food insecurity. It causes loss of livelihood, biodiversity loss” and more, she said.
Lily Coffman ’26: Expanding voting access
Lily Coffman ’26 has always been actively involved with voting rights. Before coming to Brown, she served on the Waco Youth Council in Texas, helping local residents register to vote.
Growing up in Texas, Coffman has seen first-hand how gerrymandering can impact the representatives that ultimately get elected, she said. Those experiences have shaped her work at Brown and, next summer, she hopes to help expand voting access across the United States by interning with a nonpartisan group.
She also wants to visit swing states, states with large Indigenous populations and places with contested election results to investigate voter suppression and expand voting access.
