Paulina Ochoa-Figueroa ’17 Named a Fulbright Finalist
Ochoa-Figueroa is Manhattan College’s first Fulbright finalist since 2004.
Paulina Ochoa-Figueroa ’17 has received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program English teaching assistantship grant for the 2017-18 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
Ochoa-Figueroa is one of more than 1,900 Fulbright finalists who have been selected on the basis of academic and professional achievements, as well as a record of service and leadership potential in their respective fields. She is the College’s first Fulbright finalist since Brian Haman ’03 received the award in 2004.
A native of Jiquilpan, Mexico, Ochoa-Figueroa came to the United States in 2011 to attend New Rochelle High School, nine miles north of the Manhattan College campus. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Delta Pi, the national Hispanic honor society.
A Spanish major in the department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Ochoa-Figueroa has earned a place on the Dean’s List each semester during her college career and graduated with a cumulative grade point average of 3.97.
Ochoa-Figueroa spent the 2016 spring semester in Madrid with the assistance of the Major John H. Mark ’00 Scholarship. During her time in Madrid, Ochoa-Figueroa worked for Caritas, the official confederation of the social and charitable action organizations of the Catholic Church in Spain. She has been accepted to a Ph.D. program in the department of Spanish and Portuguese studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Since its inception in 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 370,000 participants — chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential — with the opportunity to exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.