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Schuyler

U.S. Fulbright

Big Experience in a Small Country: Learning About and Supporting Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Luxembourg

June 15, 2017

David Bernstein, 2013-2014, Luxembourg (right), interviewing Mr. Rhett Power, a distinguished American entrepreneur, author, and business coach, during a talk show style event for local entrepreneurs and investors in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. (Photo Credit: Carolyn Turpin)

Nestled between Germany, France, and Belgium resides my second home and the country that welcomed me with open arms for one of the best years of my life – the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Over the 2013-2014 academic year, I had the distinct honor of being a Fulbright Study/Research Grantee to Luxembourg. While I expected my experience in the Grand Duchy to be life-changing, I did not fully grasp how much the opportunity would positively impact me until I actually arrived and began interacting with professors, classmates, and others from across my host country.

The main element of my Fulbright proposal revolved around earning a Master in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the University of Luxembourg, a new beacon of higher education in the European Union that had been founded only ten years earlier. With plans to return to the United States following my Fulbright experience to pursue a dual MD/MBA degree, I arrived in Luxembourg eager to learn important entrepreneurial and innovation skills that I could adjust, as needed, and apply in my future medical career. However, upon entering the classroom for the first time, I knew that I would learn more than I had originally planned.

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U.S. Fulbright

Bringing the United States and India Closer Together: Discovering My Role as an Indian-American Fulbrighter

June 13, 2017

Shayak Sengupta, 2015-2016, India, sitting in front of output from WRF-Chem on his monitor, an atmospheric model maintained by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States. Sengupta used this model for his Fulbright research to simulate the atmosphere and air pollution over India and ran the model on HPC 2013, one of the fastest supercomputers in India located at IIT Kanpur.

“You grew up in the United States? But your Bengali is so fluent!”

“Why don’t you speak with an accent? Didn’t you have problems learning English?”

“It’s interesting that you came here. Don’t most people go to the U.S.?”

These are just some of the pleasantly surprising comments I heard throughout my experience as a Fulbright-Nehru Student Researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), where I studied air pollution control at Indian coal power stations. While India’s economy continues to grow at a tremendous rate and the country works to deliver electricity to millions of its citizens who do not have power, it still faces challenges related to poor air quality, especially in urban areas. During my Fulbright-Nehru grant, I conducted field visits to coal power plants and used computational models to understand how better air pollution control at these stations would affect ambient air quality.

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U.S. Fulbright

Making My Big Plans Reality on Fulbright

June 7, 2017

Noaquia Callahan (left), Didem Uca (middle), and Laura Lowry (right) – all PhD Candidates and 2016-2017 Fulbright U.S. Students to Germany, at the 2017 Berlin Seminar hosted by the German-American Fulbright Commission, in Berlin, Germany.

I arrived in Berlin with a set of expectations: take to the historic city like a travelista; delve deep into the European aspects of my dissertation project on African American feminist transnational activism; volunteer with student organizations at my host university; and improve my German language skills. But adjusting to life abroad took longer than expected, and opportunities to engage my university and neighborhood communities seemed out of reach. In retrospect, this was precisely the opportunity I needed to bring my creative visions for my Fulbright year to life. The first step would be to identify my objectives. The next step would be to articulate my thoughts on paper.

With a renewed spirit of infinite possibilities, I mapped out strategic steps to accomplish my goals, and used professional networks I had established in Washington, DC during my research fellowship in African American History at the German Historical Institute. For me, this meant developing as a public intellectual by connecting my scholarship on the little-known history of African American women cultural ambassadors to my community engagement work advancing diversity and inclusion in study abroad. The first step was accepting an invitation from Universität Halle to share my knowledge of African American history with German high school teachers and provide them with exercises to integrate into their curriculum focused on U.S. history, politics, and culture. By participating in the three-day workshop, I met German scholars and U.S. Embassy Berlin officials with shared interests, thus making myself more visible for future opportunities for collaboration.

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U.S. Fulbright

A Letter to Fulbright Program Alumni

May 18, 2017

Ambassador Jeffrey L. Bleich, Chair of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board

Dear Fulbright Program Alumnus/a:

I write to you in my capacity as Chair of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, because you are a distinguished alumnus/a of the Fulbright Program. Senator Fulbright believed that the Fulbright effect is a life-long experience that demands continued engagement after scholars return home. Networking among alumni is critical to the long term vitality and success of the Fulbright Program: you have much to share with your fellow alumni and with broader audiences in the United States and abroad. That type of engagement has never been more vital, or more possible, than it is today. It is for this reason that I am writing.

Although over 370,000 Fulbrighters have completed their scholarships since the program started, there is currently no comprehensive way for all Fulbright alumni to find one another and connect on-line on projects of mutual interest. In the vast majority of cases, we do not even have email addresses, or an efficient way to share critical information or offer opportunities for you to engage with your fellow alumni. To address this, we have engaged the help of the Fulbright Association, which advocates for the Fulbright Program and offers programming through their network of 60 chapters nationwide. You can receive important information about Fulbright activities and ways to engage with other distinguished Fulbright alumni by joining a mailing list on the Association’s website. Because privacy considerations do not permit our Board to share your contact information without your permission with the Association or any other entity, we invite you (if you haven’t done so already) to provide your email and updated contact information via this link so that your colleagues may keep you up to date on alumni activities and the global Fulbright Program. You do not need to join the Association itself in order to be updated on these Fulbright activities going forward. Simply go to www.fulbright.org to learn more about the Association, and to join the mailing list.

Thank you for everything you do to keep the International Exchange Alumni community strong. With your help, we look forward to engaging you and other distinguished alumni to keep the Fulbright effect burning bright.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Bleich
Chair

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U.S. Fulbright

Limited-Time Opportunity: 76 Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships to Brazil!

May 8, 2017

Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Brazil, Mark Beasley-Murray, 2007-2008, reading to a group of students

 

As of May 2 through July 14, 2017, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program is pleased to offer 76 additional Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship awards for program year 2017-2018 through funds provided by the Brazilian government.

These new Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships are open to all eligible prospects, including those who applied in 2017-2018 and did not receive a grant offer. Grants will begin in February 2018.

To learn more about these new Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships and other Fulbright U.S. Student grant opportunities to Brazil, please visit the Brazil Country Summary Page. Good luck!

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