Kate Pimentel ’25 has won a Rangel Graduate Fellowship that could well pave the way to a career in the State Department. 

Named for former U.S. Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-NY, the fellowships—geared toward encouraging more underrepresented minority groups and women to join the Foreign Service—pay up to $42,000 per academic year for completion of a two-year master’s degree. 

The fellowship, a State Department program, is awarded to 45 applicants annually. Fellows who successfully complete the Rangel program and Foreign Service entry requirements will receive appointments as Foreign Service officers, according to the program website. 

Pimentel, who would be the first person in her family to pursue a master’s degree, grew up in Florida and Texas. Her mother had immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia in search of a “better home, a better life,” Pimentel said.

Pimentel, who is waiting to hear from the graduate schools to which she applied, became interested in foreign policy in high school but entered Dartmouth leaning toward a major in neuroscience.

Courses in the Department of Government persuaded her to consider politics and public service as a career. With a major in quantitative social science and a minor in government, Pimentel did an internship her junior year in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department in Washington, D.C.

“It was through that internship, really, that I got exposure to what a career in the State Department would look like and what serving abroad would look like. The power that the U.S. has to influence other countries was really inspiring to me in terms of trying to improve the world,” Pimentel said. 

The advantage of studying at Dartmouth, Pimentel said, was the range of courses and teachers available: “You get to learn from people who might have been doing research their entire professional careers and people who may have been in diplomacy themselves, who talk about their experiences.”

Pimentel has qualities that would make her a promising Foreign Service officer, said Peter DeShazo ’69, a visiting professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies and a former ambassador and former Foreign Service officer. 

Pimentel is “culturally sensitive, a very good analyst, excellent at advocating for policy positions, and speaks excellent Spanish,” DeShazo said. And she is “curious intellectually, with a strong background in academic disciplines which are important for the Foreign Service, like government, history and economics.”

For Americans who join the Foreign Service, there is a “feeling of tangible impact and of being able to be on the ground and interact with people who are different from you,” Pimentel said.

Pimentel, who is thinking of specializing in economics or public diplomacy, added that she is looking forward to contributing to “making the U.S. and the world a better place.”

More information on Rangel and other fellowship opportunities is available through Fellowship Advising.