Journalism major headed to Cambridge for graduate degree
The Office of Fellowships is proud to announce that Samanta Habashy (Medill ’26) has been chosen as the 2026 recipient of the Roger Boye Oxbridge Bursary! With the award’s support, Sam will move to England later this year to earn a master’s degree at the University of Cambridge.
Sam majored in journalism and international studies and minored in psychology and received the integrated marketing communications certificate. Her time in the Middle Eastern communities on campus and at The Daily ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, where she was part of the of the 2024 Deering Meadow encampment, 
encouraged her to found the NU chapter of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists’ Association to build a community where students can benefit from mentorship, more comprehensive coverage of the diverse MENA communities in campus and professional media, and, most importantly, one another.
Before starting AMEJA, Sam worked as a research assistant to Associate Professor of History Benjamin Frommer through the , where she examined the history of California’s oldest prison, San Quentin, focusing on its death row, physical architecture, and chief architect, Alfred Eichler. Working with archival plans and historical accounts, she was curious how prison architects’ identities and lived experiences shape the spaces they design, and, in turn, how those spaces embed broader political choices about punishment and confinement.
In pursuit of a journalism career that holds institutions and power to account, Sam reported from Washington, DC, as part of the Medill on the Hill program, earning a national byline for her original work looking at the overdose crisis from a federal policy angle. She has covered arts and entertainment at The Indianapolis Star and is currently the DC correspondent fellow following the Texas delegation for The Texas Tribune, a news outlet she grew up reading at home in Dallas. From interviews with Grammy-award-winning artists to powerful members of Congress, her work aims to bring news that informs, contextualizes, and responds to the communities most affected by cultural and political decisions. She has also infused her love of storytelling into her studies, most recently through her ethnographic research on American emergency rooms, “A Crime Punishable by Death,” which earned her the 2026 in the international studies department.
Outside of class, you could find Sam competing across the country with ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s mock trial team, helping acquire new artwork for the Block Museum as a student associate, walking backward as a tour guide, or actively involved in the Christian campus communities.
At Cambridge, Sam will earn an MPhil in Politics and International Studies, deepening and expanding the mission she began as an undergraduate to support Arab and Middle Eastern journalists and communities in Egypt.
The Boye Oxbridge Bursary was first offered in 2008. ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø alums who had worked with Medill Associate Professor Emeritus-in-Service Roger Boye (pictured above) through his tenure as chair of the British Scholarship Committee in the Office of Fellowships sought to honor his unstinting support with an award for a similarly devoted Wildcat embarking on graduate study at the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge.
Sam is the eighteenth recipient of the Boye Bursary and will receive over $4000 toward her school expenses.
Contact Elizabeth Lewis Pardoe at e-pardoe@northwestern.edu to learn more about the Boye Oxbridge Bursary.