All Posts By

Schuyler

Foreign Fulbright

Bats: Misunderstood Mammals Making a Difference in Your Life

October 24, 2017

Juan I. Moreira-Hernández, 2016-2021, Costa Rica, working with bats that are captured using specialized nets called “mist nets.” Only rabies-vaccinated and trained professionals should ever handle bats or any other wild mammals.

Why are there so many plant and animal species in the tropics? This seemingly simple question has puzzled biologists for centuries, and even today, there is no definitive answer.

However, species are disappearing at an unprecedented rate, and the rate is faster in the tropics than anywhere else. My Fulbright research focuses on understanding how species interactions can promote and maintain high biodiversity in tropical regions. This understanding is necessary to predicting responses to environmental changes due to human activities, and to design effective conservation polices accordingly.

Continue Reading

1 Comment
U.S. Fulbright

An International Dream Realized: My Path to Fulbright

October 20, 2017

Jordyn Hawkins-Rippie, 2017-2018, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Malaysia

I’m Jordyn Hawkins-Rippie, a recent graduate of Hampton University in Hampton, VA. For as long as I can remember, I have grappled daily with living in a world that appeared, at times, to be mostly devoid of diversity. The individuals that surrounded me, from classmates to neighbors alike, shared many of the same socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic statuses that often relegated them to their respective circles, without making real, concerted efforts to understand multifaceted individuals who thought, acted, and looked different from themselves. Growing up, I was determined to passionately commit myself to celebrating and appreciating the diversity of humanity to acquire cultural capital and expand my cultural intelligence.

As many of my peers applied and successfully gained admission into top-tier colleges and Ivy League universities, I decided to attend a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in hopes of piecing together my identity as an African-American and experiencing the cultural diversity for which I longed. My parents played an integral role in my applying to HBCUs and instilled in me the value and love for the discipline of learning and education as a whole. Through a generous Presidential Scholarship awarded through Hampton University, I began my journey there in August of 2013.

Continue Reading

7 Comments
U.S. Fulbright

Teaching in the ‘Silicon Valley’ of Mexico

October 13, 2017

Melissa Montalvo, 2015-2016, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Mexico (far right), with Universidad Tecnológica de Jalisco’s English Language Conversation Club students after a great discussion on American culture

A year has passed since I completed my Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. As I reflect on this anniversary, I recognize that my Fulbright year had an immense impact on my personal and professional direction. I thought I knew what to expect from my Fulbright year. After all, I was a former student of International Relations, a USC Global Scholar. I had already lived abroad as an exchange student in Paris, France, and had spent weeks volunteering in Mexico and Peru. I knew what to anticipate from a year abroad, right? It turns out that I was very wrong. Every single day of my Fulbright award brought something new and unexpected. Never did I expect to have such an eye-opening experience. From the first day at orientation meeting my fellow Fulbrighters, to forming friendships with my mentors at the Universidad Tecnológica de Jalisco, to meeting local tapatíos (a word to describe the people from Guadalajara), I created lasting memories.

In Guadalajara, also considered “the Silicon Valley of Mexico,” I encountered a forward-thinking city buzzing with technology and innovation. This is not exactly the vision I had of Mexico before arriving. All I knew of Mexico was folklore, border towns, and tourist resorts. I was surprised that so many young Mexicans I met were engineers, techies, and self-described ñoños (nerds). They worked at HP, Intel, Oracle, or a slew of Mexican startups like VoxFeed and CityDrive. It also seemed that everyone I met pursued passion projects outside of their 9 to 5 jobs, such as running Airbnbs and online businesses. I wanted to emulate these intelligent, proactive, and hardworking people in my life.

Continue Reading

2 Comments
U.S. Fulbright

Plants, People, and the Mother City

October 9, 2017

Tanisha Williams, 2015-2016, South Africa, at Boulders Beach visiting the iconic beach penguins

Welcome to the Mother City. These are the first words you read walking out of the airport in Cape Town, South Africa. No one could have prepared me for that feeling, stepping onto the soil of the Motherland for the first time. My emotions were complex and overwhelming, but the feeling of excitement and sense of belonging stood out.

My Fulbright grant was two-fold, conducting research for my doctoral dissertation and giving back through outreach and other STEM-based initiatives. I spent my Fulbright year researching the impacts of climate change on indigenous flora throughout South Africa. The first half of my research was used to collect seed and propagate over 1,500 Pelargoniums, a highly-diverse genus of flowering plants, at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (Wellington, Bellville and Cape Town campuses). These plants are now growing in reciprocal transplant gardens at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden in Cape Town, Western Cape and at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape. Growth and development data will help me understand the effects of genetics, the environment, and the interaction between these two processes that aid in Pelargonium adaptation to different environments. Understanding plant adaptations to their environment sheds light on how plants will respond to the unprecedented rates of climate change.

Continue Reading

1 Comment
U.S. Fulbright

Detecting Gravitational Waves at Home and Abroad

October 4, 2017

Daniel Hoak, 2015-2016, Italy, visiting Florence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fulbrighters achieve remarkable things! Are you following the announcements for this year’s Nobel Prize winners? So far, two Fulbright alumni to France have become 2017 Nobel Laureates, Fulbright U.S. Student alumnus Michael Rosbash and Fulbright U.S. Scholar alumnus Kip S. Thorne, for Physiology or Medicine and Physics, respectively.

Today, we are re-posting an article written in 2016 by Fulbright U.S. Student alumnus to Italy, Daniel Hoak, as he was part of the team of scientists who worked on the the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves – the very project that contributed to Kip S. Thorne becoming one of this year’s Nobel Prize winners for Physics!

The Fulbright Program congratulates Kip S. Thorne and Daniel Hoak for their outstanding and ongoing work in the field of Physics.

Two months ago, physicists around the world were set ‘chirping’ with the announcement that gravitational waves had been detected for the first time. The detection is the culmination of decades of work, and it represents the beginning of a new era in astronomy.

Continue Reading

0 Comments
U.S. Fulbright

Tips for Fellowship Applicants

October 2, 2017

Fulbright U.S. Student Program applications are due this Friday, October 6 (no later than 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time)!

Need some last minute application tips and inspiration to help you hit the ‘submit’ button? Read 2015 Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellow and 2017 Fulbright Alumni Ambassador Ryan Bell’s article from 2015 below.

Good luck to all of this year’s applicants!

This time last September, I sat in my home office back in Missoula, Montana, having a tiny panic attack. The deadline for the Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship was three weeks away. My cluttered desk summed up the state of my application: teetering stacks of books, a fringe of Post-it Notes around my computer screen, and the trash can filled with rewrites.

I thought: Why put myself through the trouble? The odds were long that I’d get the grant, anyway.

Outside, the sun shone on changing leaves. Autumn is my favorite time to fish and I knew of a river where the trout were biting. My fly rod was in the closet, ready to go.

Continue Reading

0 Comments