Women's tennis alum to receive 2020-21 Fulbright Scholarship

WEST POINT, N.Y. – Army West Point Class of 2000 graduate and former women's tennis player, Jenn (J.T.) Blatty, received the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to Ukraine in photography, awarded by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as record of service and demonstrated leadership in their respective fields.

The Fulbright Program was established in 1946 as a way to connect the United States with people of other countries in an effort to build lasting connections. The program operates in over 160 countries worldwide and has given 390,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and professionals the opportunity to work together to help try and solve shared international concerns. For the 2020-2021 academic year, Blatty will be one of over 800 citizens to travel abroad.

During her time at the Academy, Blatty was captain of the women's tennis team, a four time All Patriot League selection, the Patriot League Most Valuable Player and in 2001 was selected for the Patriot League All-Decade team. Not only was she a member of the women's tennis team, Blatty was also the first female boxer at West Point. The New Orleans, Louisiana native served six years as an active-duty Army officer, deploying with the first troops into Afghanistan following 9/11 and again into Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

"Without West Point, I wouldn't understand the meaning behind the expression "embracing the suck." I wouldn't understand the collective struggle we experienced and endured together that allowed us to appreciate life and forge friendships of steel," said Blatty. "I would have never experienced the combat zone and identified with the tribe of combat veterans. My work in Ukraine, my motivation to tell the story of these soldiers fighting for freedom, is driven by this universality of combat veterans across borders and around the world. And I believe that any West Point graduate would rightfully respect Ukraine's 2014 soldiers (the subjects of my project), because the fire that drove them to risk their lives on the battlefield fall side by side with the patriots of our own Revolutionary War."

Post service, Blatty found a passion for photography and was inspired by a love of capturing life, people and her personal experiences through photography and writing. Since leaving West Point she has had numerous opportunities for creative discovery including a photo internship with National Geographic Traveler, authored a book called Fish Town: Down the Road to Louisiana's Fishing Communities, and took a photojournalist role as a FEMA disaster reservist photographer whose photographs and articles have been published in Bloomberg, National Geographic, PDN Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Savannah Magazine, The Daily Beast/ Newsweek, The Oxford American, and CNN Photos amongst others.

In addition, her work has been exhibited in the Ukrainian Institute of America (NYC), the Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago, the Multimedia Moscow House of Photography in Russia, the Borges Cultural Center in Argentina, the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, among other museums and galleries.

Back in 2018, Blatty started a project known as, Frontline-Peace Life: Ukraine's Revolutionaries of the Forgotten War, where she has spent her time documenting Ukraine's volunteer soldiers and veterans. For more information on this project, click here.

With the scholarship, Blatty will conduct her research through the National Memorial and Revolution of Dignity Museum and the Veteran Hub. The current project, Transition Within Conflict and Across Borders, will be a multimedia documentation of Ukraine's 2014 volunteer soldiers of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Army West Point Athletics

Women's tennis alum to receive 2020-21 Fulbright Scholarship

Related Videos