As her fellow graduating seniors prepare to close out their final semester at UW–Madison, Cat Carroll is laying out her itinerary to spend a year abroad, traveling to seven countries around the world to connect and tell the stories of communities directly impacted by historic and contemporary migration patterns. Her work will also follow journalists, as they continue to document the cross-continental impacts of migration.
Carroll is set to graduate this May with majors in journalism and mass communication, international studies and German with certificates in public policy, European studies, Middle East studies and Arabic language and culture. She was recently named the 2025-2026 College of Letters & Science Wolff Fellow.
The Wolff Fellows program was established in 2020 by the late L&S alumnus Paul Martin Wolff (’63) and his wife Rhea S. Schwartz to award a graduating senior a $45,000 stipend to develop an international itinerary for a year abroad.
“I was really drawn to apply to this fellowship, because the way I saw it, there was no other opportunity available that could get me where I want to be at this scale,” Carroll says. “It’s a perfect combination of service learning and professional development all within a year.”
Carroll pursued this fellowship to study the intersection of global migration patterns and journalism. From there, she carefully crafted an itinerary based on places of historical and modern significance to these global migration patterns.
“A commitment to studying global migration helped me develop my itinerary, which underscores everything, and then also how journalists are covering this issue,” Carroll explains. “Each place is somewhere impacted by global migration movements, past or present, so that was what made me choose each place, and they all connect well together. That was something I kept in mind, to follow migratory paths that humans have taken to guide my own journey across these countries.”
Carroll will travel to seven different countries during her fellowship to examine these migration patterns, understand how communities are affected by migration and document the stories of the people at the center of it.
The first leg of Carroll’s journey will begin along the United States-Mexico border, where she’ll shadow journalists who report on the border. She will also visit several cities along the border to connect with communities that are directly impacted by the challenges at the border, documenting their lived experiences.
After leaving the border region, Carroll will go to San José, Costa Rica, where she spent last summer studying abroad. Here, she plans to volunteer through teaching storytelling techniques to students while engaging with local journalists living in exile.
Upon leaving the Americas, Carroll will head to Europe. Her first stop: Seville, Spain. In Seville, Carroll will focus on immigration integration, studying both historic and contemporary integration practices. Her time in Seville will relate to a class she took during her undergraduate studies at UW.
From there, she will travel to Marrakech, Morocco, to work with youth and understand how they are impacted by different cultural changes. Carroll explains that this part of her fellowship will also connect both European and African migration patterns.
Carroll will then visit Istanbul, Turkey, to learn from refugees impacted by displacement and how they navigate through uncertainty. In Istanbul, Carroll will continue to study migration patterns and paths, specifically researching labor migration to Germany.
In her second-to-last leg of the trip, Carroll plans to spend three months at a language institute in Amman, Jordan, to both advance her Arabic language skills and study different Arabic dialects. Here, she will also investigate the impact these variations in dialects have on journalism and the coverage of different Arabic communities.
In her final three-month stretch of the fellowship, Carroll will return to Berlin, Germany, where she studied abroad in the summer of 2022, to study modern migration patterns. Carroll plans to reconnect with refugees she met in Berlin during her study abroad to understand the impact of historical forced migration on modern-day policy.
“Being in a lot of different places, I will have to be nimble and adapt quickly to the cultural differences,” Carroll explains. “It’s an interesting time to travel as an American overseas, so I am also preparing for that.”
Throughout her year-long fellowship, Carroll wants to connect with communities to form relationships and share their stories. She plans to keep a blog throughout her trip to not only reflect on her experiences, but also to share the unique stories of the communities and individuals she encounters along the way.
“I am really excited to challenge my assumptions and be on the ground in these places, engaging with people whose lived experiences differ from my own,” Carroll says. “I think that’s the greatest way to learn.”