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Will Figg '13 Selected as 2012 Noland Fellow
Woodberry Forest School announces the selection of Will Figg '13 of Fairfax, Virginia, for the 2012 Noland Summer Fellowship. Will plans to spend a month in the west African country of Sierra Leone carrying out a multi-faceted project that combines service with cultural and scientific learning. The service aspect of Will's project will include teaching English at Swawou Primary School in Kenema and assisting in a medical clinic. He also intends to carry out scientific research on the waterborne illnesses that challenge the health of Sierra Leone's citizens.
In creating his fellowship proposal, Will called on help from science teacher Dr. Todd Jarry, who will serve as his project advisor and help Will develop procedures for testing drinking water samples for contaminants. He also called on several of his past experiences and interests. An aspiring orthopaedic surgeon, Will volunteered two summers doing DNA genotyping in a lab at the National Institute of Health, where his father, Dr. W. Douglas Figg, Sr., is a cancer researcher. "Will's fellowship proposal is the first in recent memory to include such a strong science component," commented the program's faculty liaison, history teacher Dr. Matthew Boesen.
Will's interest in Sierra Leone came through a friend of his father's, Callum Campbell, whose London publication company Law Business Research founded the Swawou Primary School in collaboration with the Children's Education Trust Sierra Leone. "Before researching my Noland fellowship proposal," Will noted, "most of what I knew about Sierra Leone came from the movie Blood Diamond." Now Will understands many of the problems facing this mineral-rich republic: low literacy rates, poverty, and recent emergence from a civil war.
Will sees himself as fortunate to have been named to the fellowship, saying, "I'm confident that I will not only learn a tremendous amount from this experience, but my independent research will improve the lives of others."
Woodberry Forest School's Noland Summer Fellowship program is funded by Lloyd “Bud” Noland III ’62, who established it with members of his family through the Noland Memorial Foundation in honor of his father. The program provides financial support to students who wish to pursue projects that, in Bud Noland’s words, “offer truly life-changing experiences to the very best Woodberry students.”
Woodberry Forest School is an exceptional private school community for high school boys in grades nine through twelve. It is one of the top boarding schools in the United States and one of the only all-boys, all-boarding schools in the country.
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