Elizabeth Rigby Selected for Prestigious CBYX Fellowship in Germany

Elizabeth Rigby, a spring graduate of Oberlin College, is one of 75 Americans selected to live and study in Germany for a year as part of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX) for Young Professionals program. The 2022-2023 cohort departs in July and returns in June 2023. 

CBYX is a joint program of the U.S. Congress  and the German Bundestag (Parliament). Cultural Vistas administers the CBYX Young Professionals program through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participants come from a wide variety of career fields and from all over the United States. 

Rigby, who majored in chemistry and German, will attend a two-month intensive language course, study at a German university, and complete a chemistry internship. Participants are usually placed with host families throughout Germany, where they act as citizen ambassadors of the United States.

While German language ability is not required for the fellowship, Rigby studied German all four years at Oberlin. 

“I met some of my best friends and housemates in these courses, and I particularly enjoyed working with Visiting Assistant Professor Peter Woods,” says Rigby, who is a resident of Clancy, Montana. 

From October 2022 to January 2023, Rigby will live in Mainz, Germany, and study at the Johannes Gutenberg University. For the proceeding internship, she hopes to work in Yafang Cheng’s lab at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, where the research will focus on studying climate change, aerosols, and air quality. 

Rigby has collaborated on chemistry research with several Oberlin faculty members, including Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Manish Mehta, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Shuming Chen, and Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Rachel Saylor.

After the fellowship year, Rigby intends to pursue a graduate program in chemistry.