Our Scholarship Program

My name is Misheel Battumur. I’m an undergraduate Economics student studying at University of California Santa Cruz. I’m currently taking advantage of the virtual classes and working in property management full time while studying full time. I also assist the Bay Area Mongolian community with interpretation and translation work as a subcontractor for a language service provider. After obtaining my degree in Economics, I plan on working in Revenue Management driving revenue and forecasting demand. I would also like to advance my education after furthering my work experience by obtaining my MS in Economics or MBA. Most of all, I’m aiming to make my parents proud. The Mongolian Foundation Scholarship will help fund my education at UCSC and reduce some financial burden. And I can’t be more thankful.

Daigengna Duoer (pronounced “dye-gain-na” “door”) is currently a PhD Candidate in the Religious Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Daigengna mainly works with Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Mongolian sources. Her doctoral dissertation is a digital humanities project mapping transnational and trans regional networks of Buddhism in modern East Asia from Inner Mongolia and Manchuria, connecting Tibet, Republican China, and Imperial Japan. In addition to Buddhism, Daigengna also looks at how indigenous religious traditions, Islam, Christianity, and Shinto interacted with Buddhism in twentieth-century Inner Mongolia and Manchuria. Daigengna is a host for the New Books in East Asian Studies Podcast, a channel on the New Books Network. She is also an editor of Mongolian Studies for the Digital Orientalist, an online magazine on digital humanities.

Gankhuyag Purevdorj is a senior student at the University of Michigan majoring in Chemical Engineering. He grew up the suburban area of Ulaanbaatar. He is the first one in my family to study abroad  (especially in the college of USA). In the future, he has a strong desire to continue sharing and teaching students of the upcoming generation about his experience of studying in the US college. In his spare time, he likes to compose stories about Mongolia in English.

Gankhuyag Purevdorj is a senior student at the University of Michigan majoring in Chemical Engineering. He grew up the suburban area of Ulaanbaatar. He is the first one in my family to study abroad  (especially in the college of USA). In the future, he has a strong desire to continue sharing and teaching students of the upcoming generation about his experience of studying in the US college. In his spare time, he likes to compose stories about Mongolia in English.

Sachraa G. Borjigin is a Ph.D. Candidate Student at the University of Maryland College Park, majoring in Civil Engineering and specialized in Civil Systems. He received an M.S. degree in Civil Engineering and Specialised in Structural Engineering from the University of Maine Orono and a B.S. degree in Engineering Management from Tianjin, China. Sachraa is originally from Shilingol-Aimag, Inner Mongolia and graduated from Shilingol Mongol High School. He dedicates most of his time towards academic research on developing smart city infrastructural network designs using the existing multi-dimensional civil infrastructures in order to improve network resilience. Through our research work, my optimal goal is to help develop strategies to build strong and sustainable civil infrastructural networks in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia as well as around the world. Besides the Teaching and Research Assistant tasks at the university, he also loves learning new languages. Currently, Sachraa is able to speak, read and write four different languages and those are Mongolian (both in Uygurjin and Cyrillic), English, Mandarin Chinese, and Korean. 

Sodongoo Sodsuren is a junior year Dramatic Arts student at The New School- College of Performing Arts. ​At the New School she is concentrating in Acting, Directing and Playwrighting and has been in several productions both at her university as well as New York City festivals such as ‘The Night of Philosophy’. Sodongoo has produced her own original play as a part of ‘In the Works: 10-minute play festival’ and is set to portray Megaera/Dr. Rosemary in the Spring 2020 Mainstage production of ‘Rough Magic’. 

Byeibitgul Khaumyen is a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology at Texas A&M
University. She received bachelor’s degree in Education from State University of
Mongolia, and master’s degrees in Human Science from Osaka University. Byeibitgul
was born and grew up in Khovd province of Western Mongolia in an extended nomad
family. Before coming to the USA, Byeibitgul worked at Khovd University- a local
teacher training institution in Western Mongolia. Her research focuses on young Kazakh
women’s experiences with an Islamic piety movement in post-socialist Mongolia. Upon
completion of her degree, Byeibitgul aims to contribute to advocacy on women and girls
in her fellow Kazakh community as well as academic and professional development of
rural tertiary education in Mongolia.

Geser Bat-Erdene is a BBA student in Finance with a minor in French at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He dedicates a significant amount of time and energy serving as the first international student Student Body President representing and protecting rights and needs of more than 15 thousand students. Since he was a freshman, he recognized the need for promoting international relations and diversity at his University and founded the Mongolian Students Society in 2015. He constantly strives to find and share resources and opportunities with people around him because he believes that a society thrives when everyone does.  

Khashkhuu Otgontulga moved to the US at age 4. He has lived in Colorado until age 14 where he moved to Chicago. He is now an undergraduate senior at the Illinois Institute of Technology studying Computer Science. During the summer of 2017, he worked as a research assistant at IIT. He is passionate about coding and plans to graduate in December 2018. He aspires to be a software engineer and wants to inspire Mongolians to study STEM majors.

Erdenebaatar Erdene-Ochir is a Ph.D. student in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from UCSB and a master’s degree in theological studies from Harvard. He studies Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophical polemics and history of Buddhist scholastic traditions as well as intellectual histories of Tibet and Mongolia.

Tsatsral Battsengel is a chemical engineering graduate student at the University of California Santa Barbara. She completed her bachelors degree at the University of Michigan in 2016. Tsatsral is passionate about doing research and learning. One of her dreams is to improve domestic production in Mongolia. Family and friends are priorities in her life. 

Enkhsaikhan Batbayar  was born in Ulaanbaatar and spent his childhood with his entire extended family in Mongolia. Immigrated to the U.S, at the age of 7, he is now a college student attending University of California, Santa Cruz. He is a history major. He is currently working with undocumented students at the Educational Opportunity Program and despite his own status, he is aspiring to enter into the field of law. He is proud of his Mongolian identity and he hopes to become a role model to the new generation of Mongolian-American children.