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U.S. Fulbright

Program Update: New U.S. Student Awards to Austria for Graduate Research in STEM

September 11, 2017

Kelvin Chan of Brooklyn, NY received his BA in Biology from the University of Virginia, VA. In 2013-2014, he studied neuronal migration disorders as a Fulbright U.S. Student at the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.

The Fulbright Program is pleased to announce up to five new awards for U.S. students to Austria: the Fulbright-Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Awards for full-time research and/or study in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). These awards are generously funded by the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation, which works to support cooperation and the transfer of knowledge between Austrian and American universities and academics.

Applications are being accepted now through October 6, 2017. Ph.D. candidates in STEM disciplines and related fields are strongly encouraged to apply. Applications from highly qualified graduate students and recent undergraduates with strong project proposals in relevant fields will also be considered.

The Austrian Fulbright Commission is particularly excited because these are the first awards targeted specifically at students in STEM fields, an area in which Austria is particularly strong. With up to five grants, this new award will give an unprecedented number of U.S. students the opportunity to conduct fully-funded STEM-related research in Austria with the Fulbright Program.

For more information, please visit the Austria country summary for details. Good luck!

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U.S. Fulbright

Pro Tips for Acing the Fulbright Campus Interview

August 31, 2017

Clockwise from left: Shayak Sengupta, 2015-2016, India, Emily Yedinak, 2013-2014, Chile, Yuriy Veytskin, 2013-2014, Australia, and Gwyneth Talley, 2015-2015, Morocco

On-Campus interview season is coming up! This can be a nerve-wracking time for those of you applying to the Fulbright U.S. Student Program through your college or university. Try not to worry, though – the interview is a way to add a “face” to your Fulbright application and get helpful feedback.

You’ll hit submit on the Embark Online Application before your campus deadline, your on-campus Fulbright Program Adviser (FPA) will schedule an on-campus interview, and you will then have the chance to explain and defend your project. This interview is an additional element to your application when your campus committee rates and recommends you. After the interview, your FPA will re-open your application, allowing you to adjust it before the final national deadline. As Fulbright U.S. Student Alumni Ambassadors, we’ve been through this process before and have created a Q & A about campus interviews to help you prepare.

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U.S. Fulbright

An Engineer’s Unlikely Journey Down Under on Fulbright

August 7, 2017

Yuriy Veytskin, 2013-2014, Australia, visiting Ayers Rock at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park

It was August of 2012 when I first heard about the opportunity that would change my life. How I heard about it was rather direct and unromantic: a simple email from the Fulbright Program Adviser at North Carolina State University, my alma mater, listing all of the science-related Fulbright Programs available that year. I had heard about Fulbright before, but the idea of applying for a grant in the middle of my PhD program seemed daunting and unrealistic. Setting all doubts aside, I figured I would ask my adviser for more information and take it from there. Little did I know, this would be the start of two months of dedicated, and at times frantic, application writing in order to meet the internal university and national deadlines. Unlike some other applicants, I started my application quite late and only had about five weeks to submit all of my materials by the internal campus deadline. Unfazed, I worked diligently for hours to complete my Fulbright application while also taking my graduate courses. For my affiliation letter, I cold emailed a few scientists in my potential host country, Australia, hoping that they might forward my request to the appropriate contacts. The affiliation letter I received ended up being highly detailed and focused, signed by my three prospective advisers, and was likely a major contributing factor to the success of my application.

After going through countless iterations of my Statement of Grant Purpose and Personal Statement with the assistance of my Fulbright Program Adviser, I was able to submit my application by the internal university deadline.

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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

Melding Art & Science Draws Fulbrighter into Community of Kindred Spirits

November 9, 2016
janet-rafner

Janet Rafner, 2015-2016, Denmark (center) with fellow Fulbright U.S. Student Natalie Hoidal (left) and Truman Fellow Jordan Went (right) attending Janet Rafner’s ‘Call Me Quantum’ Exhibition featured during Copenhagen’s Culture Night at the Niels Bohr Institute. Traversing through the exhibit, one experiences a range of phenomena such as the atomic orbitals, tunnel effect, wave particle duality and superconductivity from orthogonal perspectives. Layers of design, graphics, and illustrations unveil the scientific process, revealing the compelling and elegant physics that inspired the work. This exhibit displays contents created by the Physics Reimagined group at the University Paris Sud and The National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France. Design in collaboration with the students from the design school ENSCI-Les Ateliers and Ecole Estienne. (Photo Credit: Professor Robert Feidenhans’l)

While on my Fulbright grant in Interdisciplinary Studies in Denmark, I have been so fortunate to interact with passionate, dedicated like-minded people and kindred spirits across many disciplines. From creative designers and game developers to physicists, computer programmers, cognitive scientists and public outreach experts, these individuals form a unique community dedicated to enhancing science and mathematics comprehension and research outcomes. As a rule, they are intensely curious, willing to take risks and experiment, and passionate about collaborating, even when the project is only tangentially related to their core research. The result is a continuous flow of inspirational energy and a sense that anything might be possible if the right group of people come together.

In this environment where progress often comes from discovering and following unconventional paths, having great mentors has also been crucial to my Fulbright work. The process has allowed me to excel while contributing to diverse scientific and outreach projects, tapping into my own motivations and talents, and building new collaboration skills. The projects have helped me better understand how to bring the concepts of complex physics into the vernacular as well as make them accessible to a wider range of researchers. Professors Rikke Schmidt Kjærgaard and Jacob Sherson, my sponsors and mentors at Aarhus University have made these projects possible – I couldn’t ask for a more supportive faculty. In coming years, I look forward to both being a mentor and having new mentors so I can continue to explore how technical tools and artistic creativity can be used to express complex concepts in science, and to share her findings internationally.

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