Fulbright Specialist Program

A program of the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright Specialist Program is a unique opportunity for U.S. academics and established professionals to engage in two- to six-week, project-based exchanges at host institutions across the globe.

 
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Fulbright Specialist Program Established

After 55 years of creating connections in a complex and changing world, the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Exchanges established the FSP in 2001.

The FSP further extended the scope and reach of the traditional Fulbright Program into a new era by providing U.S. academics and professionals with significant expertise with the opportunity to complete short term project-based exchanges designed by institutions around the world. In its first year, 46 experts such as Marsha Echols, Professor of Law and Director of The World Food Law Institute at Howard University, would serve as Specialists in 30 countries across the globe.

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Pulitzer Prize Winning Historian Begins His Fulbright Journey

Fulbright Specialists are a diverse group of passionate and accomplished individuals who engage with institutions around the world to share their expertise. Michael G. Kammen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at Cornell University whose many books explored the Constitution, the concept of American identity, and America's cultural and social history, served as a Specialist at the University of Bucharest in Romania.

During his grant, Kammen led seminars on the study of American culture and served as the keynote speaker at the Romanian Association of American Studies' biannual U.S. Studies conference.

Smithsonian Conservator Provides Essential Training to Preserve Khmer Artifacts

Through the FSP, institutions around the world are able to connect and develop sustained collaboration with U.S. experts from a wide range of professional backgrounds and fields, including the U.S. public and non-profit sectors.

Paul Jett, then the Head of Conservation and Research at the Smithsonian Institutions's National Museum of Asian Art, served as a Specialist in Cambodia, providing technical trainings to a team of curators and museum professionals to enable them to care for a collection of nearly 7,000 bronze artifacts dating from as early as the 9th century.

The project led to nearly a decade of collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of Cambodia to study and preserve this important cultural art form including establishing Cambodia's first bronze conservation program and bringing an exhibit of several dozen bronze artifacts to the American public in 2011.

Ten Years of the Fulbright Specialist Program

The FSP continues to grow and expand opportunities for U.S. academics and professionals of all backgrounds to develop international collaboration, advance their careers and make meaningful contributions to society.

Over 10 years, nearly 2,200 individuals served as Fulbright Specialists in 140 countries and other areas around the world in 24 eligible disciplines.

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Fulbright Specialists Address an Emerging Migration Crisis

The short-term and flexible nature of the FSP allows Fulbright Specialists to use their skills and expertise to support their host institution's response to emerging challenges.

In reaction to a growing migration and humanitarian crisis in the Middle East, a number of Fulbright Specialists like Joseph Bock, Director of the International Conflict Management Program at Kennesaw State University, were deployed to assist universities, government institutions, medical institutions, and non-governmental organizations around the world to address urgent issues related to refugee resettlement.

As a Specialist, Bock consulted with the Municipality of Athens in Greece as they worked to develop strategies for managing the influx of refugees and migrants to the city.

Alumna Tapped to Lead One of the World's Largest Scientific Societies

Chemist Donna Nelson has served as a leader within the scientific community by contributing to the examination of racial and gender diversity of U.S. faculty in the sciences through the development of the Nelson Diversity Surveys, one of the first highly disaggregated datasets examining diversity of STEM faculty within U.S. research universities. She has also advanced the public's understanding of the importance and impact of science and scientists through diverse activities like serving as science advisor to the team behind the hit television show Breaking Bad.

In 2016, she was tapped to serve as President of the American Chemical Society (ACS), an organization with over 150,000 members from the chemistry community. As a Specialist in Bulgaria, Nelson delivered lectures on education in chemistry and the history and philosophy of chemistry at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and participated in workshops on the inclusion of women in science and decision making.

Community College Dean Becomes First Fulbrighter to Bermuda

Valerie Palamountain, Dean of Workforce Development at Piedmont Virginia Community College, served as the first U.S. Fulbrighter to the island nation of Bermuda. While there, she collaborated with Bermuda’s Ministry of Education and Workforce Development to create a National Workforce Development Plan for the island’s approximately 65,000 residents.

Women of Color Magazine Announces Technologist of the Year Award

Fulbright Specialist alumna and University of Central Florida professor Pamela McCauley was named the 2019 Women of Color magazine's Technologist of the Year.

As a Fulbright Specialist at Massey University in New Zealand, McCauley advised faculty at the Joint Center for Disaster Research on applications of mobile technology and human factors engineering for emergency and disaster management.

The first Black woman to earn a PhD in Engineering in the State of Oklahoma, McCauley was honored for her more than 30 years of professional leadership in the STEM fields, most recently through her work as Director of the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps, which prepares scientists and engineers to gain entrepreneurship skills and transition discoveries from the lab to products and processes that benefit society.

Alumni Contribute to the Fight Against COVID-19

For the first time in the history of the Fulbright Program, exchanges were temporarily paused to protect the health and safety of Fulbrighters in the face of the unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic, and program staff assisted Fulbright Specialists around the world to quickly and safely return to the United States.

Throughout 2020, Fulbright Specialist alumni rose to the challenges presented by COVID-19 and volunteered their skills to help battle the pandemic's effects in their communities and on a global scale, such as by conducting research to predict the effects of public health policies in fighting the pandemic or lending their expertise to support front-line healthcare workers.

FSP Looks to the Future: Strengthening Fulbright's 75 Years of Impact

Over the last 20 years, over 5,000 individuals have served as Fulbright Specialists, contributing to Fulbright's 75-year legacy of creating meaningful global impact, sharing knowledge across communities, and improving lives around the world. We look forward to the next 75 years of Fulbrighters advancing ideas and making meaningful contributions to society!

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