Carolina faculty members selected for Fulbright U.S. Scholar Awards
July 23, 2024UNC Global Affairs
Three UNC-Chapel Hill Faculty members recently received awards from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board to teach or conduct research abroad during the 2024-2025 academic year.
Suja Davis, Oswaldo Estrada and Anthony Hackney received the honor alongside 800 other U.S. scholars. During the same academic year, 900 visiting scholars will come to the United States.
“Participation of Carolina faculty in Fulbright supports the global mindset of our campus and enhances the University’s global reputation,” Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Giselle Corbie said. “I am proud of these faculty who will maintain their international connections for years and bring global knowledge and perspectives to their research and teaching.”
The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program offers awards in 135 countries to college and university faculty and administrators who are U.S. citizens, as well as artists and professionals from various fields. Fulbright awards are also available to students and scholars visiting Carolina from other countries.
Faculty interested in pursuing Fulbright Scholar and Specialist awards should reach out to the Center for Faculty Excellence.
Carolina has a long history with the Fulbright Program. This year, UNC-Chapel Hill was honored as a Top Producing Institution for Fulbright U.S. Students for the 14th time for sending over 20 students and recent alumni abroad on Fulbright scholarships for graduate studies, research or teaching.
For professionals, these prestigious awards offer the opportunity to build their skills and make important connections abroad while enhancing their work at home.
This year’s Fulbright U.S. Scholar awardees will be honored, along with other UNC Fulbright alumni and visiting Fulbrighters, at the annual Fulbright Welcome Reception hosted by UNC Global Affairs in conjunction with International Education Week in November.
Suja Davis
Davis is a clinical associate professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill school of Nursing, or SON. As a Fulbright scholar, she will be hosted by the Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences (KUSMS) in Nepal.
“This global partnership with KUSMS supports [our] mission of advancing the health for all — including global and local communities,” Davis said.
At KUSMS, she will spend time with faculty and students teaching adult health nursing and research courses, conducting workshops and seminars for the faculty and supporting faculty to promote their scholarship. In addition to giving lectures and seminars, she will also conduct an educational research project to incorporate educational innovations into the nursing curricula.
Davis is an educator and a health care professional, and this opportunity will advance both her professional and personal development.
“The Fulbright Scholar Award is the most widely recognized, prestigious and respected international exchange program in the world,” Davis said. “This award gives me an opportunity to exchange ideas, build people-to-people connections and work to address complex global challenges which will improve my knowledge and skills on global health, as well as my scholarly work. I aim to build a global network of contacts, which can lead to collaborations and partnerships that benefit Carolina’s SON.”
Oswaldo Estrada
Estrada is a professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and the director of the Faculty Fellows Program at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities. As a Fulbright Scholar in fall 2024, he will do archival research in Spain, while joining an established research group at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), called “Literature, Image, and Cultural History.” Housed in the Institute of Language, Literature, and Anthropology, this research group addresses cultural and literary studies from a broad and interdisciplinary perspective, with a transnational and transatlantic focus.
Estrada’s work will focus on Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695), a poet from colonial Mexico. Estrada is writing a book about her carols, religious poems and her prologues and dedications to explore how the poet-nun of the Baroque era articulated a feminist discourse that attracts a wide range of readers today.
“My interdisciplinary reading reflects the true nature of the poet who contests calcified differences between male and female, when she argues, ‘I know only that my body,/ not to either state inclined,/ is neuter, abstract, guardian/ of only what my soul consigns,’” Estrada said, quoting the poet. “This is the Sor Juana that captivates male, female and transgender readers today throughout the world, including the LGBTQ+ community.”
Estrada plans to use his time in Spain to inform and expand his teaching at home.
“Upon my return to Chapel Hill,” Estrada said, “I would love to offer undergraduate and graduate courses on Sor Juana’s feminism, in English and Spanish, to serve our students interested in gender studies, feminism and queer studies.”
Anthony Hackney
In 2023, Hackney, professor of exercise physiology and nutrition in the Department of Exercise and Sports Science and the Department of Nutrition, was selected for a two-year award. He will complete the second year of his fellowship this academic year at the University of Eastern Finland as the Fulbright-Saastamoinen Distinguished Chair in Health Sciences. There, he is associated with the PANIC study (Physical Activity and Nutrition in Children) through which he is researching how chronic engagement in physical activity, like sports, may impact the health and physical performance capacities of young girls transitioning to women.
“From a professional perspective, the Finnish scientists I am working with are considered some of the best in the world in the area I specifically study so even at my advanced age, I expect and plan to learn new things to bring back to Carolina,” Hackney said. “Concurrently, I will get to experience firsthand the country that has been voted several times the ‘happiest in the world.’”
Hackney is receiving a Fulbright Scholar Award for the fourth time. As a veteran of the program, Hackney said that Fulbright goes beyond professional development.
“If I had to name one thing that has profoundly helped to shape me into the person I am today, it would be the Fulbright program,” Hackney said. “It has made me a better professor in the classroom and the laboratory — a better all-around person — and enriched my life and that of my family. It has been and is a ‘win-win’ experience.”
Hackney also serves as UNC-Chapel Hill’s Fulbright Faculty Liaison in the Center for Faculty Excellence and advises Carolina faculty on developing competitive Fulbright applications.
This is a developing story and may be subject to additions.