What is the Fulbright Scholar Program?

In a few weeks, I'm going to begin my stay at the University of Costa Rica as a Fulbright Scholar. Here's some background on the Fulbright Program:

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the US government, designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the US and other countries. It was established in 1946 by then-Senator J William Fulbright of Arkansas and is sponsored by the US Dept of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. More than 300,000 Fulbrighters from the US and other countries have participated in the program in the past 60 years, and awards approximately 8,000 new grants annually.

I specifically applied to the Fulbright US Scholar Program, which sends 1,200 American scholars and professionals annually to about 125 countries, to lecture and/or conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields.

The most popular program is the Fulbright US Student Program, meant for US graduating college seniors, grad students, young professionals and artists to study abroad (research) for 1 academic year.

The Fulbright Program supplies the stipend, travel and living expenses, and some logistical support, while everything else is done independently (finding housing, a university host, research project etc.)

There's also plenty of grants for foreign students/professionals to come to the US and study/work.

As a disclaimer, I should say that the opinions revealed in this blog are my own and do not represent those of the Fulbright Program or US government.

I've still got a lot of stuff to figure out before I leave, but am truly excited!

A new adventure

Last week I attended the Fulbright Pre-Departure Orientation for the Western Hemisphere in DC, a 2 day orientation for Fulbright Scholars, Students and Teaching Assistants going to Central America, Caribbean and South America. Everyone was really excited and it was great to see and meet other people from the program. Most Scholars are professors at small universities with established professional careers and research, with plenty of teaching background. I, on the other hand, am teaching my first course, and just got my PhD 6 months ago! It was a bit intimidating. I definitely spoke to more of the students and grad students than the Scholars. There's 3 other Scholars going to the University of Costa Rica, but all are going in 2011. There's 4 or 5 other students/grad students going this Fall but they will be at various field sites doing their research. I'll be the first one going for the 2010-2011 year.

Most people were in the social science fields (anthro, social work, women's studies, teaching English, geography, ecology etc), the closest thing to another physical scientist was a Computer Engineer and Chemist/ecologist. Most people were going to a specific region to conduct research related to their project in that region. So what am I doing there?

I'll be a 'visiting assistant professor' at the University of Costa Rica in San Jose, Costa Rica (outside the capital), in the Physics department. I'll be teaching 1 course to graduate students, 'introduction to nanotechnology and characterization techniques', and doing research. The research project I proposed was a new inter-disciplinary project combining materials science and archaeology. The materials science aspect of it will include using techniques I learned in graduate school to characterize nanostructures (mostly Atomic Force Microscopy) within the context of looking at ceramic samples from Pre-Columbian peoples of the Guanacaste region (near the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border). I've always liked archaeology and even thought about minoring or double majoring in it, so this should be interesting! I'm definitely interested in applying my technical background to areas outside of nanoscience that can use the tools we use, so we'll see how that goes.

For now, I'm prepping my course and figuring out the logistical details. I'll probably visit Neha's host family that she stayed with last summer. Once I figure out my dates, I will let you know so you can all visit me!