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Alum Stories
Making an Impact Around the World
As we head into 2024, we asked Fulbright Specialist Program alums look back on their time as Fulbrighters and share mementos that express what they mean to them.
“This experience broadened my understanding of global educational needs, enriching my own work with fresh insight.”
“Fulbright allowed me to understand that I was making the right decision to engage with this amazing Deaf community and bring some of my Deaf and hearing professor friends along for the ride.”
Celebrating 20 Years
of Fulbright Specialists
Learn About Notable Milestones and Alumni
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.
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.
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!
Connecting a Complex
and Changing World
Learn how Fulbright Specialists have fostered collaboration around the globe.
Specialists in the News
University of Rhode Island
University of Helsinki
