DR Parris Lyew-Ayee was, on Monday, October 14, announced as the ninth fellow from Jamaica for the Multi Nation Programme of Eisenhower Fellowship.

The announcement was made during a luncheon hosted by Sagicor Bank at the Terra Nova All-Suites Hotel in Kingston.

Dr Lyew-Ayee was chosen among 29 other fellows worldwide to the United Stated-based fellowship created in 1953.

The fellowship, a seven-week intense programme designed to support the fellow’s professional interests, will run from mid-March to mid-May 2014.

Before being chosen by the Philidelphia-based Fellowship, Dr Lyew-Ayee was selected from a local batch of four candidates.

The candidates were Yaneek Page, the entrepreneur who founded Future Services International, a litigant support service; Rezworth Burchenson, investment analyst with a passion for pension management; and Kimala Bennett, entrepreneur of The Business Lab, which funds business solutions especially for youth.

With that choice, Sandra Glasgow, Eisenhower Fellow for 2000, and a member of the Jamaican selection committee, said that the international selectors had no choice, but to select Dr Lyew-Ayee.

“That was the aim of selecting Dr Lyew-Ayee,” Glasgow told the teenAGE. “That they had to choose him as fellow-at-large. We are very proud that he is among the 30 chosen this year.”

Dr Lyew-Ayee is a 32-year-old senior lecturer and director of the Mona GeoInformatics Institute of the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, as well the head of the university’s Department of Geography and Geology.

He said that he will use his fellowship not only grow as a professional, but visit the National Park Services to see how they manage environmental issues and national development.

The Eisenhower Fellowships is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organisation created in 1953 as a birthday gift to President Dwight Eisenhower from a group of prominent US business leaders.

Currently, 49 countries are invited to send international fellows to the US. Some countries are invited annually, some biannually, some every three years. International fellows follow an intense programme specifically designed to support their professional development, consisting of meetings, conferences, speaking engagements and cultural events, typically visiting eight to 10 US cities.

— MED