Kellen Plaxco (M.Div., 2007) is one of more than 1,700 U.S. citizens selected as recipients of Fulbright Fellowships for the 2012–2013 academic year. Currently a doctoral candidate in historical theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Plaxco is heading to Belgium this fall to study philosophy. He will travel to Katholieke Universiteit Leuven’s Centre for the Study of the Transmission of Texts and Ideas in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Renaissance. While there he will conduct research to support his doctoral studies—a historical-theological monograph on the theology of Didymus the Blind, a fourth-century Alexandrian theologian. By conducting close readings of Didymus’s texts, Plaxco will reconstruct how the Platonist tradition influenced Didymus’s theory of participation.

Plaxco says his time at Princeton Seminary was critical in helping him win the Fulbright award. “My studies in early Christian theology with Kathleen McVey, professor of church history, Paul Rorem, professor of medieval church history, and Iain Torrance, president and professor of patristics, prepared me to go on to further work in the field at the University of Notre Dame and Marquette University,” he said. Plaxco also said that Bruce McCormack’s (professor of systematic theology) rigor and intellectual devotion continue to inspire him today. 

Plaxco is thankful for the professional contacts and friends he made at the Seminary, many of whom have supported him during his doctoral work. “Without their encouragement, the Fulbright never would have become a reality,” he said.  

In 2011, Princeton Theological Seminary was voted an “Elite Fulbright Institution,” which means the Seminary is honored for successively developing students for Fulbright Fellowships.