Five Cornell students will spend the 2009-10 academic year studying in Germany as the result of winning prestigious, fully funded fellowships from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and the Cornell/Heidelberg Exchange. Herbert Deinert, professor emeritus of German studies, administers the programs at Cornell.

Three students won DAAD grants, which cover air travel, tuition and fees, and monthly stipends. (Under the exchange agreement, Cornell also will award tuition and fees fellowships to three German students selected by DAAD.)

Ryan Henderson, a graduate student in chemistry and chemical biology, will spend the year at the University of Marburg to "establish an experimental connection to the higher-dimensional theoretical models of complex inter-metallic crystal structures developed ... at Cornell."

Djahane Salehabadi, a graduate student in sociology and science and technology studies, will continue to research her dissertation topic addressing waste management, specifically electronic waste (e-waste), of which Germany is a major exporter.

A third award recipient who prefers to remain anonymous will spend the year in Berlin and Potsdam.

Two undergraduates in Ithaca are Cornell/Heidelberg Exchange Fellows and will spend the year at the University of Heidelberg, Germany's oldest university.

Alyson T. Blum '09, German studies and government, will devote the year to studying how literary fiction represents sociological phenomena and shapes collective memories.

Eleanor Vaughan '09, economics and German studies, will combine her interests in economics -- specifically German economics within the European Union -- and German culture. She hopes to remain in Germany for a master's degree in applied economics.

Their fellowships cover tuition and fees and monthly stipends. In turn, two Heidelberg students will come to Cornell in the fall.

For the first time, Heidelberg University has also made a number of fellowships available without asking for reciprocity from Cornell. The recipients of these, covering tuition and fees, are Fedor Dokshin '09, sociology and government; Marc Franzoni '09, German and philosophy; Omkar Halbe, graduate student in electrical engineering; Steven Otterman '09, philosophy, German, and law and society; and Daniel Ranweiler '11, classics, German and philosophy.

For more information on the DAAD and Heidelberg exchange programs, see http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/hd11/.