Matthew Davis, a graduate of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa, recently received a fellowship from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, to study Middle Eastern politics and history, Arabic and International Economics.

Davis graduated from Iowa with an MFA in nonfiction from the Nonfiction Writing Program in spring 2007. He won the 2005 Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Competition in nonfiction and had a notable essay in the 2006 Best American Travel Writing Series. His work has appeared, among other places, in the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Bellevue Literary Review and the Mid-American Review. While at Iowa, he was an Iowa Arts Fellow, a Stanley Fellow and a Writer-in-Residence at the UI Museum of Art.

He currently works with the International Reporting Project and has an essay in River Teeth. Before he attended school in Iowa, Davis lived in Mongolia for three years, a country that is the focus of much of his writing.