Brown University Swimmer Kelley Tackett Awarded Fulbright Fellowship

Courtesy: Brown University

Brown University swimmer Kelley Tackett has been awarded a Fulbright fellowship for the 2020-2021 academic year. Tackett is one of two swimmers so far who have been announced for inclusion in the prestigious Fulbright program this year, along with University of Chicago’s Yifan Mao.

Tackett will use the opportunity to travel to India to work with a community living “on or around an archaeological site being excavated or adapted for tourism.”

According to Brown, “She’ll be researching how modern relationships to ancient material heritage develop; what archaeological practice can do to accommodate and respect these relationships; and why archaeological sites are often offered priority over the living communities around them in both disciplinary practice and heritage law.”

Tackett studies at Brown University’s Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World.

Tackett was also a four-year member of the varsity swimming & diving team at Brown. Originally from Columbia, Missouri, Tackett competed in a handful of meets for Brown in her career, though she never made the team’s Ivy League Championship roster. As a senior, she swam at two meets, swimming a 57.79 in the 100 free against Boston University and Fordham and a 1:01.07 in the 100 fly against Columbia. Her best seasons came as a freshman and sophomore, where she recorded times of 53.11 in the 100 free and 57.45 in the 100 fly.

The Fulbright Program is a United States Cultural Exchange Program that, among other things, provides scholarships for about 2,000 American students annually to research, study, or teach annually for one academic year. The program was funded by the United States Congress after World War 2, using the sale of surplus war property to “fund the promotion of international good will through the exchange of students in the fields of education, culture, and science.” As part of the program, American students can travel to more than 140 countries worldwide.