fulbright

Six members of the Wesleyan community have accepted grants through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, a prestigious international academic exchange program that offers graduates, graduate students, and young professionals opportunities to study, research, or teach English abroad in over 140 countries. During the 2024-25 academic year, this year’s cohort — which includes Melanie Cham ’24, Eliot Kimball ’24, Sophie Mann-Shafir ’22, Daisy Montoya ’24, Simon Worth ’24, and Joanna Paul ’18 — brings their skills, interests, and curiosity to a far-flung geography spanning Argentina to India to Madagascar. The prestige of Fulbright experiences helps open doors to exploration and opportunities…

The U.S. Department of State has released its list of Fulbright Program Top Producing Institutions for the 2023-2024 academic year and Wesleyan University has earned a spot for the fifth consecutive year. The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government's flagship international academic exchange program. Since 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided over 400,000 talented and accomplished students, scholars, teachers, artists, and professionals of all backgrounds with the opportunity to study, teach, and conduct research abroad. Fulbrighters exchange ideas, build people-to-people connections, and work to address complex global challenges. Six Wesleyan University students were selected for Fulbright awards for academic year 2023-24,…

Wesleyan University has been selected to host a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence from India to teach new courses and to help incorporate more international perspectives into the chemistry curriculum during the 2023-2024 academic year. Prof. Pawan K. Sharma, an expert in organic synthesis and medicinal chemistry at Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh and earlier Dean of Research and Development at Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, was selected for the Fulbright award by the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. The Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence Program brings visiting scholars from abroad to U.S. colleges and universities, helping the institutions internationalize their curricula, campuses and surrounding communities, and diversify the…

The interests and accomplishments of Wesleyan’s current cohort of Fulbright Fellowship recipients is diverse, ranging from education to translation to refugee reception to tracing ancient trade routes across the Mediterranean. “This reflects something that I’m not sure people realize about the Fulbright program: with hundreds of distinctly different grants available across more than 140 countries, there’s no one cookie cutter Fulbrighter,” said Erica Kowsz, Associate Director for Fellowships. Nick Bowman ’23, Margalit Katz ’22, Ben Levin ’23, Emily McDougal ’23, and Anna Tjeltveit ’23 will fan out across the globe for their Fulbright years starting this Fall. “With two…

Before Ben Levin ’23 was a Wesleyan student, he visited a friend on campus. They ventured into a classroom together to find a student working through a math problem on a chalkboard while blasting punk rock through his headphones. The student then took off his headphones and passionately explained what he was working on. “It felt like I was in a movie scene,” Levin, chosen to speak at Commencement on May 28, said. “I was excited because it was really the first time where I thought ‘this is the kind of person I really want to surround myself with,’ even…

The U.S. Department of State announced that Wesleyan University is a Fulbright Program Top Producing Institution for the 2022-2023 academic year. This is the fourth consecutive year Wesleyan has appeared on the list. “Fulbright is interested in Wesleyan’s commitment to thinking about how what happens in an academic setting interacts with the real world and how that can be mobilized in a positive way,” Erica Kowsz, Assistant Director for Fellowships at the Fries Center for Global Studies, said in a previous interview. The list of Fulbright Top Producing Institutions for 2022-2023 was published in early February. “Thanks to the visionary leadership of these institutions, administrators, and…

From exploring the inner workings of the European Union to helping students in Zambia learn English along with a way to advocate for themselves, Wesleyan’s recipients of the Fulbright U.S. Student program will serve the Fulbright mission of citizen to citizen diplomacy and learn about themselves in the process. “I’ve spoken to other Fulbright (recipients) and they said when they left the program, they knew exactly what they wanted to do and they had a completely different perspective on their own situations … This program will be amazing because it will teach me all sides of the education perspective,” said…

For the third year in a row, Wesleyan University was named a Fulbright U.S. Student Program Top Producing Institution for the 2021-2022 academic year. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the largest U.S. exchange program offering opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide. The program currently awards approximately 2,000 grants annually in all fields of study and operates in more than 140 countries worldwide. In 2021-22, 28 Wesleyan students and recent alumni applied for the fellowship. Of those, Ji Yoon Park '21 and Lupita Sanchez '20,…

As a recipient of a Fulbright Specialist Award, Professor Lisa Dierker hopes to connect with academic partners across the world sharing her expertise and excitement in support of data analytics. “High quality, accessible and manageable data have never been so critical to the well-being of people around the world,” Dierker said. “Increasing capacity to identify, gather and analyze relevant data is a key pathway for better-informed decision-making and will create a larger, more diverse workforce.” Dierker, Walter Crowell University Professor of Social Sciences, professor of psychology and education studies, is a co-creator of Wesleyan's "Passion-Driven Statistics" model, a data-driven, project-based…

Six recent Wesleyan alumni are the recipients of 2020–21 Fulbright Awards. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the largest U.S. exchange program offering opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide. The program currently awards approximately 2,000 grants annually in all fields of study, and operates in more than 140 countries worldwide. The recipients include: Inayah Bashir ’20, who majored in the College of Social Studies, won a Fulbright grant to teach English in Kenya. Bashir will work with Kenyan students to place their identity and…

The Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) recently announced that Wesleyan is included on the list of United States colleges and universities that produced the most 2019–2020 Fulbright U.S. Students. The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government's flagship international educational exchange program. Not only is Wesleyan a top Fulbright producer nationwide with its seven grantees, but it also has more winners than any other liberal arts institution in Connecticut. “We are delighted to see that the colleges and universities we are honoring as 2019–2020 Fulbright top-producing institutions reflect the geographic and institutional diversity of higher education…

Ten Wesleyan seniors and recent alumni are the recipients of 2019-20 Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships (ETA) and Fulbright Open Study/Research Awards. The English Teaching Assistant (ETA) Programs place Fulbrighters in classrooms abroad to provide assistance to local English teachers. ETAs help teach English language while serving as cultural ambassadors for the U.S. The age and academic level of the students varies by country, ranging from kindergarten to university level. Applicants for Open Study/Research Awards design their own projects and will typically work with advisors at foreign universities or other institutes of higher education. The study/research awards are available in approximately…

Wesleyan Fulbright Fellows Embark on Global Journeys of Curiosity

Wesleyan Named Fulbright Program Top Producing Institution for Fifth Year in a Row

Wesleyan Selected to Host Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence

2023 Wesleyan Fulbright Fellows Begin Their Work

Student Speaker Levin ’23 Will Miss People at Wesleyan

Wesleyan Again Named Fulbright Program Top Producing Institution

Wesleyan Continues Fulbright Success

Wesleyan Recognized as a Top Producer of Fulbright U.S. Students

Dierker to Teach Passion-Driven Statistics As Fulbright Specialist

6 Alumni Receive Fulbright Awards

Wesleyan Named a Top Producer of Fulbright U.S. Students

10 Wesleyan Students, Alumni Win Fulbrights