The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) announced today that 54 emerging American leaders representing 18 states and the District of Columbia have been awarded the prestigious Marshall Memorial Fellowship (MMF) for 2010. During the 24-day traveling program, fellows will develop extensive knowledge of political, economic, and social institutions and issues facing the United States and Europe.

"Having just celebrated the tenth anniversary of the expansion of the Marshall Memorial Fellowship program to include American fellows, we are pleased to begin another ten years with such a strong class of new Fellows," said Craig Kennedy, GMF's president. "We are excited to see that our reach has extended into new states, which will benefit from their residents' participation in this program."

The MMF program educates the emerging American and European leaders on the importance of the transatlantic relationship and encourages them to collaborate on a range of international and domestic policy challenges. Fellows are selected through competitive nationwide and regional  processes and come from politics, government, media, business, and the non-profit sector. American fellows spend 24 days traveling to five cities across Europe, learning about the institutions and people that drive Europe's cities, regions, countries, and multilateral systems through meetings with local counterparts.

The program began in 1982, when the inaugural group of German Fellows visited the United States. Now entering its 28th year, the program currently includes fellows from 22 European countries and the United States. GMF and its partner institutions have been instrumental in developing and maintaining a vital network on both sides of the Atlantic committed to transatlantic relations.

GMF works with partner organizations across the United States to identify and select the American Marshall Memorial Fellows. Partner organizations assisting in the 2010 selection process include the Cleveland Foundation, the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, the Citizens League of Minnesota, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort
Worth, the International Affairs Council of North Carolina, the Institute for Public Policy Studies at the University of Denver, the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta, and the Southern California Leadership Network. National partners include the American Council of Young Political Leaders, the Council of State Governments, and the National League of Cities.

Also in 2010, MMF alumni in Raleigh, North Carolina, will lead the coordination of the annual Marshall Forum on Transatlantic Affairs. This conference, to be held in September, is an annual gathering of MMF alumni from the United States and Europe to discuss current events affecting the transatlantic relationship. Alumni of the MMF program are a vital component of the program's success. In 2009
American alumni coordinated visits of their counterpart group of European fellows to 14 American cities, organized selection processes throughout the United States, and managed the 2009 Marshall Forums in Washington, DC, and Berlin, Germany.

For a complete list of the new American Marshall Memorial Fellows please click here . 

The Marshall Memorial Fellowship (MMF) was created by the German Marshall Fund in 1982 to introduce a new generation of European leaders to America's institutions, politics, and people. In 1999, GMF launched a companion program to expose future U.S. leaders to a changing and expanding Europe. The program attracts the best and brightest from all sectors, including politics, media, business, and nongovernmental organizations. Fellows come from across the United States and from 22 European countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, France, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, and Turkey). GMF works closely with partners in more than 50 cities on both sides of the Atlantic to make the MMF program possible.