The Career Development Grants support women who hold a bachelor's degree and are preparing to advance their careers. Special consideration is given to women pursuing their first advanced degree in a non-traditional field. The grants have to include a clearly defined activity that promotes education and equity for women and girls. AAUW grants are among the most competitive. Last year only five women in the United States received a community action grant from the AAUW.

Jessica will receive a one-year grant for $7,000 (which is the maximum amount a grant recipient can get) to complete an ambitious project. Living with international students while at USF, Jessica wanted to videotape these international women graduate students because she felt that U.S. women needed to learn about the life experiences of women from other cultures, and she also wanted to give a voice to these women. She will use this grant to purchase a video camera and a laptop, and to hire an editor to help produce the videos.

Jessica wrote this grant last semester as a class project for the Grant Writing course she was taking with Dr. Susan Evans. She enrolled in that Grant Writing course because she worked on two grants at UC San Diego as an undergraduate and felt this was an important skill to have.

Congratulations to Jessica and special thanks also to Dr. Shabnam Koirala-Azad, from the IME department, who helped Jessica with the final editing of her grant proposal. We hope many more SOE students will follow in Jessica's footsteps!