Amelia Rivers, who earned the Master of Arts in in Musicology from Florida State University earlier this year, is one of four students from FSU to receive a prestigious Fulbright award for 2025-2026. Rivers has received an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) at the Universidad Católica de Oriente in Rionegro, Colombia as part of her award package.
“This moment feels surreal,” said Rivers. “The hard part is over, and I couldn’t be more grateful.”
The Fulbright ETA program places recent graduates in schools and universities abroad to support English language instruction and serve as cultural ambassadors for the United States. Rivers’s placement in Colombia is a fitting next step for a scholar whose research and personal interests have long bridged music, language, and culture in Latin America.
“Having written my thesis on joropo [a genre of music and dance from the Llanos (plains) region of Colombia and Venezuela], I have a unique opportunity to involve myself in Colombian music culture,” she said. “There is a thriving music curriculum at UCO, and I have joined several bands, choirs, theatre troupes, dance ensembles, and radio classes.”
The FSU College of Music congratulates Rivers on this outstanding achievement and looks forward to following her journey abroad.
