Kristina “Kristi” Martin, a 2021 graduate in elementary education, has won a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) award to Taiwan for the 2021-22 academic year. She is PBA’s second Fulbright Award winner to Taiwan, and her win marks the fourth year in a row that a PBA student has earned the prestigious Fulbright ETA.
Martin, of West Palm Beach, hopes to leave for Taiwan in July, though her trip could be delayed as the country continues to deal with COVID-19. She is to teach English in Taipei, Taiwan’s largest city.
“Taiwan has an amazing education system,” said Martin, “so I am very excited to work with the teachers and students to learn from them as well.”
The Fulbright program, operating under the U.S. Department of State, sends recent graduates of American institutions abroad for a program of cultural ambassadorship and intellectual exchange and service work. “It is truly an honor to be trusted with such a big responsibility,” Martin said.
She is the daughter of PBA alumni Randy and Heidi Martin. Her brother, Kyle, attends PBA as a Farish Scholar. Randy Martin is president of The King’s Academy in West Palm Beach.
Kristi Martin plans to teach in the U.S. after her Fulbright appointment. “I love working with kindergarten through second-grade students,” she said. She hopes to earn her master’s degree “so that one day I would be able to impact the education community as a principal or assistant principal.”
Martin applied for the highly competitive Fulbright award with the help of PBA’s Prestigious National Scholarship Program. Tessa Walk, a December 2020 cum laude graduate in psychology, was named an alternate for South Korea.
PBA has produced seven Fulbright ETA winners in the last four years. In addition, Dr. Gregory Perreault, a 2006 alumnus, won a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to Austria, to teach and conduct research at University of Vienna. He is an assistant professor of journalism at Appalachian State University in North Carolina.
