Information Session and Alumni Speaker Panel: East Asia and the Pacific

This information session provides prospective U.S. applicants with an in-depth look at the Fulbright Specialist Program and the opportunity to hear from a panel of Fulbright Specialist alumni who completed projects in the East Asia and the Pacific region.

Alumni panelists:

Robin Hamilton is an Emmy-award winning television host, producer and moderator for townhalls and forums.  She is founder and principal of the ARound Robin Production Company, where she creates videos for non-profits to help with fundraising, marketing and messaging.  Working at the intersection of media and policy, Ms. Hamilton’s work is guided by the principle of providing information that can promote transformation.  Her company has also produced four award-winning documentary films about historical figures who have made a significant impact on society. In 2016, she served as a Fulbright Specialist in Burma, where she worked to create a communications campaign between local citizen organizations and the Burmese government.   She received two master’s degrees, one from New York University, with a concentration in broadcast journalism, and a second in public administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, with a focus on public policy and media.  

Suni Petersen earned a doctorate at the University of Florida. Her research focus was on health behavior change for disease prevention. After 16 years of clinical practice, Dr. Petersen began a career of research, teaching, and mentoring.  Her work focuses on underserved populations including her NIH supported studies on Mammography and reduction of Cardiovascular Disease in urban African-Americans in Philadelphia.  After moving to California, alongside her academic career, she started the Dragonflies Project in 2009 focusing on health behavior change to reduce parasitic disease in rural Vietnam. Dragonflies trains and hires indigenous women to work with other women in their villages. In 2017, Dr Petersen served as a Fulbright Specialist in Semarang, Indonesia to assist Dian Nuswantoro University in building research into their public health program.  The faculty and Dr. Petersen then brought the Dragonflies Project to Kalibening, Java, whose Department of Health adopted it.

Information Session and Alumni Speaker Panel: Near East and North Africa

This information session provides prospective U.S. applicants with an in-depth look at the Fulbright Specialist Program and the opportunity to hear from a panel of Fulbright Specialist alumni who completed projects in the Near East/North Africa region.

Alumni panelists:

Sheree Josephson served as a 2022 Fulbright Specialist at Radio ML in Tunisia. She is the Rodney H. Brady presidential distinguished professor, a former chair of the Department of Communication, and founding director of the Master of Professional Communication program at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. She recently returned from Tunis, Tunisia, where she was a Fulbright Scholar, working with the staff of a community radio station that focuses on serving underserved and disadvantaged listeners, especially those in the disabled community. Josephson is a noted eye-tracking researcher who has published two edited books: the second edition of “Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods, and Media” published by Routledge Publishing and “Visualizing the Web: Evaluating Online Design from a Visual Communication Perspective” published by Peter Lang Publishing. She has also published numerous journal articles and book chapters. Josephson worked as a journalist for 15 years before becoming an academic. In 2021, she was honored with the Service to Utah Journalism by the Utah chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Terik Tidwell is an award-winning innovator, investing in the capacity of individuals, communities, and organizations. Over the past 17 years, he has worked at the intersection of entrepreneurship, technology, policy, philanthropy, and education facilitating inclusive tech-based economic development. Recently, he received a Fulbright award within the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research to develop a roadmap to accelerate innovation, entrepreneurship, and commercialization across the country. Tidwell currently serves as the Director of Inclusive Innovation and interim director of Innovation Ecosystems at VentureWell, where he leads the development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies, networks, policies, and programs to support innovators and institutions’ innovative capacity.

Prior to joining VentureWell, Terik was the founding Executive Director of the Smith Tech-Innovation Center and Director of STEM Innovation Initiatives at Johnson C. Smith University. While at JCSU he developed strategic partnerships and implemented innovative programs to enhance innovation, entrepreneurship, and tech-based economic development. During his six-year tenure, he acquired and managed $19 million in extramural funding from federal agencies, corporations, and philanthropic organizations.  His efforts led to the university being recognized as an Innovation Ecosystem Partner and the transition of a successful spinout company. In 2021, Tidwell was elected to a two year term to the joint-board of the Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) where he facilitated the development of a roadmap for enhancing the innovative capacity for Minority-Serving Institutions. Additionally, he was a frequent consultant to major corporations, foundations, startups, and investors.

In the community, Tidwell is an advisor to the North Carolina Innovative Development for Economic Advancement Foundation and chair of the board for the Foundation for Black Philanthropy. He also serves as an advisor to Harvard Business Review, Greenlight Fund, HBCUvc, and Black Tech Ventures.

A New Jersey native, Tidwell is a former Google AI awardee, and a former Global Innovation Fellow and Young Leaders of Americas Initiative (YLAI) Fellow with the State Department. He has been published in IEEE and cited several times in major news outlets. His undergraduate and graduate studies include Technology, Finance, Marketing at Monmouth University, Fordham University Graduate School of Business, and Venture Finance at UC-Berkeley Law School.

Information Session and Alumni Speaker Panel: Sub Saharan Africa

This information session provides prospective U.S. applicants with an in-depth look at the Fulbright Specialist Program and the opportunity to hear from a panel of Fulbright Specialist alumni who completed projects in the Sub Saharan Africa region.

Alumni panelists:

Chaunda Scott is a professor of human resource development at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, and a recognized workforce diversity expert.  She earned a master’s degree in education administration focused in adult diversity education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a doctorate degree in organizational leadership focused in workforce diversity education from Teacher’s College, Columbia University. 

Her scholarly research, publications, and teaching interests are in human resource development, workforce diversity education, antiracism education, and social justice practices. Most recently in 2020, she was a recipient of the Academy of Human Resource Development’s distinguished R. Wayne Pace Book of the Year Award.  Additionally, she has received several diversity awards and been recognized as one of the Top 25 Education Professors in Michigan. In 2015, Dr. Scott received a Fulbright Specialist Award at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa where she engaged in staff diversity education and professional development.

Donna Oti is the co-founder of Communication and Culture, LLC, an organizational development firm, based in Madison, Alabama that helps small to medium size business improve communication effectiveness and organizational culture. As a journalist, communication professor, and organizational development consultant, Donna received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to University of Jos, Nigeria in 2004, after which she spent six subsequent years as a consultant for the University, and led initiatives to support a capacity building grant from the Carnegie Foundation of New York. She also served as a consultant for the West and Central African Research and Education Network, developing strategic communication plans and speaking at international conferences. Fifteen years later in 2019, Donna returned to the region as a Fulbright Specialist, collaborating with colleagues to facilitate new media workshops for journalism scholars and students in Accra, Ghana.