A DePauw University junior has won a highly competitive scholarship that will enable her to study in Peru during spring semester.
Perla Bermudez ’21, a biology major from Houston, was one of 41 students from around the country to win a scholarship during this round from the Fund for Education Abroad. More than 1,800 students from 470 colleges and universities applied; all 41 winners are people of color and 51 percent are, like Bermudez, first-generation college students.
The scholarship will enable Bermudez to study biodiversity in the Amazon rainforest. She’ll be a student at The School for Field Studies and spend time in the classroom and in the field, conducting research. Experiences at DePauw inspired her interest in biodiversity as a subject and research as a pursuit, she said.
“This past summer was the first time that I did research here on campus,” she said. “It was so an amazing experience. I learned so much – things I wouldn’t have learned here with regular labs that I’m taking. So knowing that I would be doing direct research in Peru was something that caught my eye.”
She participated on a team of students working last summer in the lab of Pascal Lafontant, associate professor of biology, who conducts research with funding from the National Institutes of Health. Bermudez, who wants to become a small-animal veterinarian, administered anesthesia and performed heart surgery on a zebrafish.
“Perla was a student in my Bio 241-Intermediate Cell biology class,” Lafontant said. “I noticed how invested she was in understanding how processes work, and was impressed by the insightful questions she would ask. So I recruited her for the summer to work on one of the NIH research grants ongoing in the lab. Perla quickly learned to do heart surgery on the tiny zebrafish and investigated whether nerves regrowth was part of the heart regeneration process.”
Bermudez, the daughter of two Mexican immigrants, became interested in biodiversity, she said, after spending her winter term 2019 in Costa Rica as a student in Tropical Ecology in Costa Rica: Writing Nature, a class taught by English professor Joe Heithaus and biology professor Janet Vaglia.
“I learned so much about the environment and climate change, and heard the stories of local people who are working, dedicating their lives to sustainability. It really made things much more personal, talking to them,” she said.
“I wanted to do something where I wouldn’t be forced into a school to take just classes within my major. … That’s something very special about liberal arts schools, especially DePauw.” -Perla Bermudez ’21
That trip was made possible when Bermudez secured a scholarship from the Global Access Initiate Challenge, part of DePauw’s Inclusive Excellence Initiative. Recipients are students of color who could not otherwise travel abroad; the scholarship stipulates that recipients must commit to studying abroad for a full semester.
Neal McKinney ’09, associate director of DePauw’s off-campus programs, oversees the Global Access program and thus has been working with Bermudez. He also advised her on the essay she was submitted in application for the Fund for Education Abroad scholarship.
“I am so impressed with Perla's determination, passion and kindness she has in everything that she does…,” he said. “She is an excellent academic student, and she will be a wonderful ambassador for DePauw during her time in Peru.”
Bermudez, a resident assistant in Longden Hall, chose DePauw at the urging of a DePauw alum, Lee Anne McKelvey ’05, who teaches at Bermudez’s high school, KIPP: Generation Collegiate, as well as a counselor, who “knew that I wanted to do something where I wouldn’t be forced into a school to take just classes within my major,” Bermudez said. “I think that’s something very special about liberal arts schools, especially DePauw.”
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