Caitlin McMahon ’25 has been awarded a coveted Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) for Mongolia for the 2025-2026 academic year. In August, she will travel to Ulaanbaatar for an orientation at the US Embassy before heading to her 10-month placement at University of Ulaanbaatar.
The highly competitive Fulbright US Student Program, administered by the United States Department of State, was established to promote friendship and mutual understanding among nations through the exchange of students. Fulbright recipients are provided with a living stipend and serve as cultural ambassadors for the US while teaching English to students.
Through the ETA, Caitlin will teach alongside an English teacher, assisting with class preparation and organizing English-language related cross-cultural activities for students at the university. For Caitlin, who tutored other students throughout high school and college, the program will offer an opportunity to further develop her teaching skills, this time in a classroom setting.
Caitlin said she learned about the ETA program through her participation in the Honors Application Development Cohort, organized by Office of Global Awards Director Anna Kendrick for students in the summer before their senior year. “Depending on your interests and your background, Anna would recommend opportunities we should apply for,” she said. “We had a space where we could share with each other what we were applying for, what essays were hard to write, which were easier to write.”
Caitlin, who majored in Social Science (International Relations) with a minor in Chinese at NYU Shanghai, said that she’s interested in sustainability and foreign policy and learning how the US can better cooperate with other countries. The program will help her expand her knowledge of Asia, she said.
“Mongolia is in a very strategic location between China and Russia,” she said. “They have to maintain good relations with both China and Russia at all times. So it's really interesting to see how they're in collaboration with the world.”
Attending NYU Shanghai, Caitlin said she enjoyed the opportunities for cross-cultural communication and language learning. “Being in an environment that is not only academically stimulating but also offers me another level of cultural experience is really amazing, she said, pointing to the fact that most students at NYU Shanghai speak at least two or even three languages. “It’s a great opportunity to be with such a multilingual and talented group of people.”
This won’t be her first time in Mongolia. She made several friends from Mongolia at NYU Shanghai and even spent a gap semester there. “I'm looking forward to having more communication with different types of people and getting out of that bubble and seeing what it would be like to live in another country,” she said. “I'm also really excited to try exploring Mongolia a little bit too.”
Caitlin’s capstone research was about how US allies have responded to US sanctions on Chinese renewable energy technologies. She said that both in and out of the classroom, attending NYU Shanghai taught her a lot about US-China relations.
“I've had so many classes here that have taught me about what it looks like from the Chinese side, what it looks like from the US side and what are some hot topics between the two,” she said.
“Writing my capstone with Professor Ivan Rasmussen and Professor Jieun Kim has been a really great experience,” she said. “They supported my research and really helped me look into the topic, and then also gave me a lot of guidance.”
Rasmussen said that he has seen Caitlin progress over the years through her intellect and hard work. "In the classroom, Caitlin has shown a unique ability to grow and learn while engaging with her peers to make the class experience about more than just her own academic development,” he said. “She applies that knowledge to the real world through her non-academic pursuit as an engaged global citizen."
After completing the Fulbright ETA program, Caitlin said she is considering several different career paths, including in academia, sustainability, or government service. “In the future, I could combine all of these in my work, using my global connections, research, and classroom experiences that I've had,” she said. “I think it would be great.”
Office of Global Awards Director Anna Kendrick congratulated Caitlin. “Caitlin has shown admirable determination, maturity and deep engagement with Mongolian culture and society throughout this process,” she said. “Approaching her future community with respect and openness, her selection goes to the heart of the program's mission since its founding by the U.S. Congress in 1946: to deepen ties of global peace and mutual understanding between the United States and the wider world.”
Learn more about past Fulbright ETA scholars, including Ruby Rich ’24, Stephanie Anderson ’23, Declan Mazur ’23, and Samuel Boghossian ’23. For information and advice on applying for external scholarships and fellowships during or after your time at NYU Shanghai, contact the Global Awards & Fellowships office.