Fulbright Specialists travel around the world to advance mutual understanding, establish international cooperation, and create opportunities for ongoing institutional linkages. After returning to the United States, they also contribute their newly gained knowledge, connections, and intercultural experience to their employers and communities. We recently caught up with several Fulbright Specialist alumni to learn more about their exchanges, what they achieved at their host institutions, and the lessons they have brought home.
Since 2001, more than 5,000 Fulbright Specialists have collaborated with organizations around the globe like Project PINK BLUE, a Nigerian non-profit that works to prevent cancer deaths and improve the patient experience. Hear Project PINK BLUE's Founder and Executive Director, Runcie Chidebe, discuss the organization's experience hosting Fulbright Specialists to provide training for oncologists and patient advocates.
Fulbrighters gain global perspectives, advance their careers, and make meaningful connections that can grow to benefit communities around the world. In 2016, Public Health professor Jack Turman traveled to Morocco to advise Hassan First University on the country's first Master of Public Health program. Read on to learn how this partnership has since created a pipeline of graduates trained to improve public health in Morocco, as well as initiatives to enhance global learning at Turman’s home institution, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.
Catherine Cerulli, Director of the University of Rochester's Susan B. Anthony Center, travelled to India as a Fulbright Specialist to lecture on empirical legal research methods at Jamia Millia Islamia University. Read on to learn how this Fulbright grant influenced her teaching, research and global connections, and led to opportunities for faculty, students and staff at the University of Rochester to collaborate with her host institution on the launch of a new academic journal focused on curbing gender-based violence.
As a Fulbright Specialist, Director of Virginia Commonwealth University's Global Education Center Jill Blondin headed to Brazil, where she consulted with five universities on strategies for campus internationalization.
“While I was able to share my expertise, I’ve also learned a lot from these institutions," she said. "I learned about all of the great teaching, research and service that these universities are doing — and that the faculty and staff there are as committed to student success as we are at VCU.” Read on to learn more about Blondin's experience in Brazil.
Fulbright Specialists are a diverse group of highly experienced, well-established experts who represent a wide variety of academic disciplines and professions, including federal, state and local government employees. U.S. Park Ranger John Duwe served as a Fulbright Specialist at Triglav National Park in Slovenia, where he shared model practices for developing science education and outreach programming. Through Fulbright, Duwe was also able to strengthen a newly-established Sister Park partnership between Triglav and his home park, Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon.
Reflecting on his experience, Duwe remarked: "The Fulbright Specialist Program allowed me to share my passion for our national parks in a way I never thought possible. It helped prepare me to be a leader in our global effort to be stewards of Earth.” A new partnership between the Fulbright Program and the National Park Service, launched in 2021, will now provide even more opportunities for National Park Service employees like Duwe to form partnerships to support and promote conservation of cultural and natural heritage across the globe.
Fulbright Specialists create connections in a complex and changing world that positively impact both their host and U.S. communities. Read on to learn how Math professor Jenny McNulty's experience at the University of Gondar in Ethiopia inspired a new mentorship program that creates connections between female faculty at the University of Gondar and the University of Montana.
Fulbrighters represent hundreds of colleges and universities across the United States, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
When Maurice Mongkuo, a professor at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, embarked on a Fulbright Specialist grant to Altai State University in the Western Siberian region of Russia, he knew that he would be spending a month delivering lectures and workshops on public administration.
What he didn't expect is that he would return to North Carolina with a new passion for sharing the benefits of international exchange. Read on to learn how the experience has opened up new horizons for Mongkuo and his students.
Fulbright Specialists can play an important role in driving innovation and learning in communities worldwide, both at home and abroad. Mega Subramaniam, who was recently honored by the Young Adult Library Services Association for her significant, unique, and sustained devotion to enhancing library services for teens, is on a mission to reimagine libraries. As a Fulbright Specialist, Subramaniam worked with librarians from across the Kyrgyz Republic to better engage with young people through digital learning.
Read on to learn more about how the experience has led to meaningful connections and inspired her to begin developing a new study abroad program to the Kyrgyz Republic - a first in the region for her U.S. employer.