Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship

As a trained lawyer, Cornelius currently serves as the founder of Access Unlimited, Inc (AU). AU has partnered with the New York City Department of Education and Dallas Independent School District, thereby overseeing college and career readiness for over ten schools. In a greater attempt, Access Unlimited will open its first Charter School in Texas in August 2022 and its second charter school in Atlanta subsequently thereafter.

Cornelius has served as an adjunct professor at major institutions in New Orleans and New York City. He has been invited to serve as a researcher for the Hilliard III & Sizemore Research Institute on African Americans and Education. As a result, Cornelius was granted the opportunity to publish original research in an edited volume developed specifically for institute participants in the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Urban Education Collaborative – Urban Education Research and Policy Annuals.

While serving as a Fulbright Scholar/Specialist, Cornelius received an opportunity to present and participate in the “Race to the Top,” a U.S. Department of Education Conference, under the presidency of President Barack Obama. Cornelius was also nominated to attend the Forbes Under 30 Summit by New Profit Foundation and the New York City Mayor’s Office in 2016, all whilst speaking at the Inaugural Forbes Global Women’s Summit and being an invited participant in the Forbes Under 30 Global Summit in Israel and Jerusalem.

Jade Fong is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied environmentalism and global poverty. As a McNair Scholar, she conducted research on the negative effects of dams on salmon and indigenous communities.

Jade is an alumna of the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship program. During her time abroad in Seoul, South Korea, she studied urban disaster management, interned for a Korean startup company, volunteered with Reach the World, and tutored English for Teach North Korean Refugees.

Currently, Jade is an Assistant Media Planner at MediaHub and serves as a Gilman Alumni Ambassador, where she promotes the Gilman Program to prospective applicants. She hopes to apply for a Fulbright Program and pursue graduate school in the near future.

Elisabet Raquel García (she/they) is a Global Education DEI Specialist for her company, Access Equitable Education. She was a first-generation, low-income student turned 4x Scholar Abroad and a 2018 Gilman Awardee. She was also a 2x Study Abroad Peer Advisor and Liaison for the Division of Global Learning at her Alma Mater, University of California Santa Cruz, where she began her journey helping historically underserved students access global learning opportunities.

Since then, she has been invited by the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations to participate in a special Cultural Immersion and Volunteer Program for Scholars of Mexican Origin in 2019 and to work as a Bilingual On-Site mentor for the program in 2021. As a result of this program, she is also an official Youth Ambassador for Mexico City.

Elisabet and her work have been featured by NAFSA, Diversity Abroad, Terra Dotta, UCEAP, UC Santa Cruz Global Learning, Go Overseas, Verge Travel Magazine, and Global Healthy Living Foundation. She is also a creative writer and a family historian who uses her lived experiences and findings from studying abroad in her homelands and other lands to inform her stories.