The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures is pleased to announce that Olivia Kirschman ’23 has been selected as the third Griffin Sean Madden Scholar. This scholarship was established in memory of Griffin Sean Madden ’15, a double major in Slavic Languages and Philosophy. The award is designed to enable a Berkeley undergraduate to devote a summer to the intensive study of Russian at Middlebury, where Griffin also studied. (Funds have also been established in Griffin’s honor in the Department of Philosophy and at Cal Performances, where Griffin worked after graduation.)
Olivia Kirschman is a political science major from Tucson, Arizona, who became interested in the Russian language because of its significance to US national security and diplomacy. Olivia is on the board of the UC Berkeley Slavic Studies Journal, Troika. She is also a member of the UC Berkeley Nuclear Policy Working Group and the Georgetown Wargaming Society. She plans to continue her education in Russian and Eastern European affairs in graduate school. Olivia enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time in nature. Her nomination was supported by her Russian instructor, Ph.D. candidate Semyon Leonenko.
The Griffin Sean Madden scholarships have been made possible by the generosity of Griffin’s family, friends, teachers and colleagues, on whom he left a lasting impression. The fellowship in Slavic will accelerate the language study of Berkeley students who share Griffin’s enthusiasm for Russian language, literature and culture.