Updated: Dubbs '14, Lloyd-Damnjanovic '14 awarded Sachs Scholarships

Katie Dubbs ’14 and Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic ’14 were awarded Sachs Scholarships. Dubbs received the Sachs Global Scholarship and will spend next year studying in Vienna, Austria, and Lloyd-Damnjanovic won the Sachs Scholarship to study at Worcester College, Oxford.

Following their first interviews this past Saturday, both received a phone call from a committee member on Sunday morning asking them to head to Frist Campus Center to answer additional questions.

“It turned out that they only had one question: whether I wanted to take the scholarship,” Lloyd-Damnjanovic said. “Of course, when they said that, I was shocked, and, after I gathered my thoughts, I said yes.”

The scholarship provides seniors interested in scholarship in fields likely to benefit the public interest with post-graduate opportunities to study, work or travel abroad, according to its website. Two Sachs Scholarships have been awarded to seniors since last year. Before that, only one scholarship was offered every year.Previous recipients include Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80 and Elena Kagan ’81.

Dubbs, an art history concentrator, said she plans to use the scholarship to study, perform and share lieder, a late-19th-century form of Viennese classical music also known as art song. She will study at the Vienna Conservatory, where she will be mentored by artists at the Vienna State Opera. She will perform in recitals open to the public and participate in discussions about the relevance of the form.

Dubbs said her ultimate goal is to determine how classical music can be expanded to the larger American community.

“In order to change the perception in the U.S. that classical music is elitist and archaic, I will go abroad to Vienna, where it is celebrated, government-supported and acknowledged to advance the public interest,” Dubbs said.

On campus, Dubbs founded the Princeton Opera Company and has served as its president, in addition to directing, producing and performing with the group. Dubbs has raised more than $10,000 in grants for the the company’s programming, including 22 performance events.

“As a freshman I saw that there were few opera opportunities on campus and so much student interest. What began as a passion really became the focus of my time at Princeton and has really affected my future plans,” she said.

“I think they picked just the right person,” Christian Jany GS, who performs with POCO alongside Dubbs, said. “[She’s] not only smart but also inspired and inspiring. Ever since she came here, she has been working with so much passion and energy to improve the musical life on campus. She was quite successful in that regard.”

Dubbs is also one of two undergraduate representatives in the Department of Art and Archaeology, a position in which she speaks on behalf of senior concentrators to the department faculty. She received a $5,000 grant to study architecture and urban heritage in Chandigarh, India as a Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies Undergraduate Fellow, and she was the recipient of a Peter B. Lewis Award this year.

“I am very honored that the Sachs committee chose me because I am confident that this experience will reshape my understanding of opera as an art form and help me continue what I hope to be a life of sharing opera and reimagining the art,” Dubbs said.

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As a student, Dubbs is "full of ideas and interested in intellectual experimentation"and able to combine her several interests in original and compelling ways, according to her adviser, Wilson School professor Stanley Katz.

Katz became acquainted with Dubbs when she was a sophomore taking his class on civil society and public policy.He said he was very impressed with the term paper that she wrote on city planning aspects of the development of Brasilia as the capital of Brazil.

“I’m really interested in music, so we had a lot to talk about in music as well. She made a habit of coming in to talk to me,” Katz said. He added that although he didn't know Daniel M. Sachs, he thought Sachswould have been pleased at Dubbs' selection.

Lloyd-Damnjanovic, a politics major, said she hopes to pursue a two-year M.Phil. in international relations at Oxford with a focus on regional politics in the Middle East and Russia.

Lloyd-Damnjanovic is a news editor at The Daily Princetonian, where she said she dedicates around 35 to 40 hours a week editing with staff members, planning news coverage and coordinating with other departments. She is also a Head Fellow at the Writing Center, where she trains fellows in conference techniques in addition to holding conferences with students.

“It’s fantastic news,” Elan Kugelmass ’14, another Head Fellow at the Writing Center, said. “She’s a thoughtful, clever and compassionate person. I can’t wait to see how she continues developing as a scholar and policy maker.”

After studying at Oxford, Lloyd-Damnjanovic said she would like to become a diplomat or foreign policy adviser. She currently interns for the U.S. Department of Justice, a position she has held since last summer, and coaches students at her former high school in Los Angeles, Calif., on how to analyze literature and how to work on their college applications. She has also interned for the U.S. Department of State in the past.

“I would like to help contribute to American foreign policy decisions that are strategically sound and respectful of other states’ aspirations,” she said.

Lloyd-Damnjanovic’s thesis adviser, politics professor Ezra Suleiman, described her as a determined but also modest young woman. He added that in the classes she has taken with him, he has noticed that other students look up to her during discussions.

“She is a dogged researcher. She loves going out and finding things and putting them together. And she writes beautifully,” Suleiman said.

Lloyd-Damnjanovic has received The Daily Princetonian’s Class of 1961 Newspaper Writing Award and the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence. She is also a member of the Behrman Undergraduate Society of Fellows.

Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic was not involved in the writing or editing of this story.