Campus Life

Texas A&M Announces 2022-23 Fulbright Awards

The six selected faculty members will teach and conduct research abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.
By Alice Liang ’24, Texas A&M University Division of Academic and Strategic Collaborations September 27, 2022

Six Texas A&M University faculty members have received Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program awards for the 2022-223 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Christian Brannstrom, Daniel Conway, Eduardo Espina, Martin Regan, Mikko Tuhkanen and Karl Woodmansey are among more than 800 U.S. citizens who will conduct research and/or teach abroad for the 2022-23 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Fulbrighters engage in cutting-edge research and expand their professional networks, often continuing research collaborations started abroad and laying the groundwork for forging future partnerships between institutions.

Upon returning to their home countries, institutions, labs and classrooms, participants share their stories and often become active supporters of international exchange, inviting foreign scholars to campus and encouraging colleagues and students to go abroad. As Fulbright Scholar alumni, their careers are enriched by joining a network of thousands of esteemed scholars, many of whom are leaders in their fields. Fulbright alumni include 61 Nobel Prize laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize recipients and 40 who have served as a head of state or government.

  • Christian Brannstrom, professor of geography in the College of Arts and Sciences and associate dean for Academic Affairs, was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to begin a three-month teaching-research program at the Universidad de la República in Uruguay. His teaching will consist of a geography of energy curriculum with connection to the Uruguayan context, and his research aims to determine the reasons for acceptance or rejection of wind energy in rural host communities in Uruguay.
  • Daniel Conway, professor of philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences, will be a visiting research fellow at Deakin University in Australia studying the efforts of local scholars and practitioners to make social and spiritual reparations to the First Nation peoples and indigenous communities. Conway’s research is meant to shape his understanding of the psychological and social conditions of genocide and related crimes against humanity.
  • Eduardo Espina, professor of Hispanic studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, will be spending a semester in Paraguay writing a book on the changing notions regarding innovation, originality, novelty and anticanonical writing in the context of 21st-century Hispanic-American poetry. He will also be giving a seminar on “new writing of the Americas” at the Centro Cultural de España for university students in the capital city of Asuncion.
  • Martin Regan, professor and department head of performance studies in the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts, will be writing a monograph titled “Soundscapes of Japan: From Past to Present” while in residence at the Research Institute of Contemporary Japanese Music affiliated with Senzoku Gakuen College of Music and the Research Institute for Japanese Traditional Music in Japan. Regan envisions his monograph as a practice-oriented textbook for courses in Japanese music, theater and other modern genres of Japanese performance.
  • Mikko Tuhkanen, professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences, will be teaching classes in American literature and literary theory at the University of Bergen in Norway during his Fulbright tenure. He also plans to pursue two interrelated, book-length studies titled “Time’s Witness: On James Baldwin” and “Diasporic Modernities: Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Sylvia Wynter” for the coming academic year.
  • Karl Woodmansey, clinical assistant professor in the College of Dentistry, will be fulfilling his Fulbright in Nepal.

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program and is supported by the people of the United States and partner countries around the world. The Fulbright Program is funded through an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the Program.

For over 75 years, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 400,000 participants —  chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential —  with the opportunity to exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to challenges facing our communities and our world. More than 800 U.S. scholars, artists and professionals from all backgrounds teach or conduct research overseas through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program annually. Additionally, more than 1,900 diverse U.S. students, artists and early career professionals in more than 100 different fields of study receive Fulbright U.S. Student Program grants annually to study, teach English and conduct research overseas.

In the United States, the Institute of International Education supports the implementation of the Fulbright U.S. Student and Scholar Programs on behalf of the U.S. Department of State, including conducting an annual competition for the scholarships.

For more information about the Fulbright Program, contact Global Partnership Services.

Media contact: Caleb Chapman, 979-845-0544, cchapman@tamu.edu

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