CAMBRIDGE, MA—The Center for International Studies at MIT announces today that Prodita Sabarini, a Jakarta-based journalist, has been selected as the 2013-14 Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow. The award is offered through the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) and is sponsored in part by CIS. Beginning in September, Sabarini will spend the seven-month fellowship as a research associate at CIS. She will also complete internships at The Boston Globe and The New York Times.

Sabarini is the ninth recipient of the annual fellowship, which gives a woman journalist working in print, broadcast or online media the opportunity to build skills while focusing exclusively on human rights journalism and social justice issues.

Sabarini, a staff reporter for the English daily The Jakarta Post, was chosen from a pool of highly qualified applicants from around the world. She plans to research the phenomenon of religious intolerance in Indonesia during her tenure as the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow and wishes to explore the factors that turn people's fear into acts of violence.

"The Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship provides an opportunity to access research materials that are not available in my home country," Sabarini said. Peter Canellos, Editorial Page editor at The Boston Globe and a member of the Neuffer Fellow selection committee, noted that "the Neuffer fellows are both students and teachers. Each fellow has made her impact felt in Boston and elsewhere in the United States, and then taken her own lessons back to readers in Uganda, Colombia, Pakistan, India, and many other countries where former fellows are living and working."

"It is an honor to have Prodita among us. My hope is that she finds her time in an academic setting richly rewarding," said Richard Samuels, director of the Center for International Studies and Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT.

The fellowship is named for Elizabeth Neuffer, a Boston Globe reporter and the winner of a 1998 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award who was killed while on assignment in Iraq in 2003. Neuffer's life mission was to promote international understanding of human rights and social justice. For further information about the fellowship, visit www.iwmf.org/neuffer.

The Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship is a project of the Elizabeth Neuffer IWMF Fund, which is generously supported by Peter Canellos, Mark Neuffer, Carolyn Lee, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Boston Globe Foundation, The New York Times Company Foundation, Boston Scientific, MIT Center for International Studies and friends and family of Elizabeth Neuffer.