Professor Moeness Amin Distinguished Chair

Moeness is the Director of the Center for Advanced Communications at Villanova University, Pennsylvania, USA. His research spans the area of signal analysis and processing with applications to wireless communications, radar, sonar, satellite navigations, healthcare, and ultrasound. His current research focus is radar signal processing, including urban radar, Over-the-Horizon radar, automotive radar, passive radar, ground penetrating radar, and radar for indoor monitoring. Dr. Amin is the recipient of the German 2016 Humboldt Prize and the British 2016 IET Achievement Medal. He also received Technical Achievement Awards from the IEEE Signal Processing Society and the European Association for Signal Processing.

During his five-month visit to DST Group, Australia, Prof. Amin will work on the problem of co-existence between radar and communications systems where both services operate concurrently within the same frequency bandwidth. In collaboration with his host, he will develop algorithms enabling dual system functionality using the same platform.

Professor Ross Andel Distinguished Chair

Ross completed his Ph.D. in Gerontology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in 2003. He is currently Professor in the School of Aging Studies and Director of Ph.D. in Aging Studies program. He is also a Senior Researcher in the International Clinical Research Center at the St. Anne’s University Hospital in Brno, Czech Republic, and Professor in the 2^nd Medical Faculty at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. In his research, Ross has mainly focused on the examination of risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia and finding tools for early detection of cognitive impairment. To date, he has published over 130 articles peer-reviewed scientific journals and several book chapters.

Ross will use his time at the Australian National University to expand his research on how occupational characteristics (work complexity, work stress, occupational status) influence cognitive changes during and after retirement.

Professor Jean Lau Chin, EdD, ABPP Distinguished Chair

Jean is Professor at Adelphi University.  Her career as a psychologist includes leadership roles in academia as Dean at Adelphi University and Alliant International University, and in health/mental health care as Executive Director at South Cove Community Health Center, and the Thom Clinic.  She currently serves as the Council Leadership Team Chair and is on the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association.  She is also President, International Council of Psychologists.  Her scholarship on diversity, cultural competence, leadership, Asian American, and women’s issues includes 18 books and numerous publications and talks.

Her research will examine leadership and cultural competence amidst rapid social change and growing population diversity. She sees this as more important than ever as the 21st century brings about rapid social change within an increasingly global and diverse society.   She will also work on leadership development for indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in Australia.

Dr Allison M. Macfarlane Distinguished Chair

Allison is currently Professor of Science Policy and International Affairs at the George Washington University and Director of the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy.  She served as Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from July 2012 through December 2014.  She holds a PhD in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BSc degree in geology from the University of Rochester.  Her research has focused on the siting of nuclear waste facilities, nuclear safety and security, and nuclear nonproliferation.  She served on the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, created by the Obama Administration to recommend a new national policy on high-level nuclear waste. She is editor of Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste (2006).

During her Fulbright Scholarship, Allison will be researching South Australia’s foray into international nuclear waste disposal while at Flinders University and Carnegie Mellon University Australia.

Dr Armin Moczek Distinguished Chair

Armin received his PhD from Duke University, NC, USA, and is currently a Professor of Biology at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. His research focuses on the very early stages of innovation in evolution, and the interplay between genetics, development, and ecology in facilitating major innovations and transitions in evolution. He is also a co-leader of an international effort to expand traditional perspectives on what determines speed and direction in evolution to incorporate recent advances in the fields of evolutionary developmental biology, developmental plasticity, non-genetic inheritance, and niche construction.

During his time in Australia, Armin will work at the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University and CSIRO to further advance such a synthesis through both conceptual collaborative efforts as well as empirical work on Australian insects.

Professor Moczek will be talking at the next CSIRO Land, Water and Ecosystems seminar series. For more information click HERE.

Dr Brett Summerell Distinguished Chair

Brett is the Director of Science and Conservation at the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust in Sydney where he has worked for the past 28 years. He has research interests in plant pathology and mycology and is a world authority on the fungal genus Fusarium which causes some of the most important plant diseases globally, produces toxins in food and is a pathogen of humans.

For his Fulbright project, Brett will spend time in the Department of Plant Pathology at Kansas State University expanding his research on Fusarium species in natural ecosystems to the U.S. allowing a comparison of these fungal plant pathogens in Australian and U.S. ecosystems. He will also complete a second edition of the widely-used diagnostic manual, the Fusarium Laboratory Manual, on these important fungi.

Professor Johan Wiklund PhD Distinguished Chair

Johan is the Al Berg Chair and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University. His research interests include entrepreneurship and mental health as well as the entry, performance, and exit of entrepreneurial firms. He is considered a leading authority in entrepreneurship research with over 60 articles appearing in leading entrepreneurship and management journals and over 18,000 citations. He is incoming Editor-in-Chief for Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and previously editor for Journal of Business Venturing and Small Business Economics. A prolific advisor of Ph.D. students, he received the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division Mentor Award in 2011.

While at RMIT, Johan will examine the link between symptoms of mental disorders and entrepreneurial practices and outcomes. More specifically, he will focus on ADHD, bipolar, and dyslexia symptoms on the one hand, and entrepreneurial orientation, leadership style, strategies, and success/failure on the other.

Professor Bradford Burke Worrall MD, MSc Distinguished Chair

Brad is Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Virginia. During his research career, he has built cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional bridges focused on genetics to help understand risk and the underlying pathophysiology in stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases. He is a founding member of the International Stroke Genetics Consortium (ISGC). He has worked on harmonization of phenotyping focused on consistency, translation, and scalability.

Over the past twenty years, he has nurtured and built a framework for collaboration nationally and internationally in the era of collaborative science. One of his roles within his department, the American Academy of Neurology, and the ISGC is that of mentor and sponsor for junior investigators. As part of the diplomatic mission of the Fulbright program, he envisions continuing that role with scientists, clinician-investigators, and other researchers in Newcastle and Australia while learning through this academic and cultural exchange.

During his tenure in Newcastle, Brad will work to refine and improve the tools to know ‘what kind of stroke’ for both research and clinical purposes.

Professor Karen Barad Senior Scholars

Karen Barad is Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Barad’s Ph.D. is in theoretical particle physics and quantum field theory. Barad held a tenured appointment in a physics department before moving into more interdisciplinary spaces. Barad is the author of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Duke University Press, 2007) and numerous articles in the fields of physics, philosophy, science studies, poststructuralist theory, and feminist theory.

Professor Margaret S. Barrett Senior Scholars

Margaret is Head of the School of Music at the University of Queensland. She has held senior roles in music education leadership including President of the International Society for Music Education. Her Fulbright Senior Fellowship, The rhythms and modes of musical childhoods: an international investigation of young children’s creative music practices, builds on her longitudinal studies of Australian children’s singing and song-making and the role these play in young children’s learning and development.

Margaret will work with colleague Professor Patricia Campbell from the University of Washington to access the archives of the Smithsonian Institute and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and analyse their collections of children’s song and song-making. The project will contribute to understandings of the nature of children’s song-making across diverse cultures and epochs, the social and cultural settings that support this work, and the meaning and value for children of singing and song-making.

Professor Timothy A. Carey Senior Scholars

Tim is Director of the Centre for Remote Health in Alice Springs. He is a clinical psychologist researcher and clinician and is particularly interested in improving patients’ control in health care settings in terms of the way in which services are designed and delivered, as well as how patients are able to access these services. Patient control is especially important in remote settings where access to services is compromised and health outcomes lag unacceptably behind the health enjoyed by urban citizens.

Tim will use his time on the Fulbright Scholarship to develop research training for practicing health professionals in conjunction with colleagues at the Center for Behavioral Health Innovation at Antioch University so that health professionals in remote and other underserved communities can evaluate and improve the programs and services they offer for the benefit of the patients they serve.

Professor Kimberley Frederick Senior Scholars

Kim earned her BA at Lawrence University in 1991, her PhD in analytical chemistry at Purdue University in 1996.  She conducts research in separation science and spectroscopy with an emphasis on forensics, medical diagnostics and environmental testing technology.  Her research, which is conducted with her undergraduate students, focuses on developing low cost technologies which can be used by non-technical personnel with minimal training.  Specifically, they develop paper-based tests that can be used for disease and water contamination detection using a cell phone camera.  Their work has resulted in numerous publications and grants in the areas of Raman spectroscopy and capillary electrophoresis.  Kim also teaches courses in analytical and general chemistry.

While in Australia, Kim will work, in collaboration with Prof. Michael Breadmore, to develop an autonomous instrument that can be used to monitor sources of water contamination.  Of particular interest are compounds, such as iodide and bromide, that indicate contamination from oil and gas drilling into natural bodies of water.

Dr Amy E. Hessl Senior Scholars

Amy studies the environmental histories stored in the rings of ancient trees.  She has researched the history of fire and climate in the western United States, eastern North America, and Mongolia.  Amy’s work on the climate of the Mongol Empire received international attention in the press including articles in The Economist, The New York Times, and the LA Times. More recently, Dr. Hessl, in collaboration with scientists at the University of Melbourne, has developed climate records for southern Australia using Tasmanian conifers.

Amy will extend her work on the history of climate in southern Australia by collaborating with Dr. Tessa Vance at ACE-CRC in Hobart, Tasmania.  Dr. Vance’s research on the climate history of southern Australia using ice cores is the ideal counterpoint to the tree ring records and together their work has the potential to improve our understanding of decades-long changes in climate from both natural and anthropogenic causes.

Dr Menna Jones Senior Scholars

Menna is an ecologist specialising in wildlife conservation and ecosystem restoration in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Tasmania. She leads research on native marsupial carnivores, Tasmanian devils and quolls, how their ecological interactions might protect wildlife from feral cats, and how the Tasmanian devil is evolving to save itself from a devastating novel transmissible cancer.

Menna’s Fulbright project, Harnessing Native Predators to Conserve Wildlife at Landscape-Scale, is a major opportunity to expand the scope of ecological science for tackling Australia’s biodiversity crisis. She will work with Professor Bill Ripple at Oregon State University to understand how ecological history influences the impacts on biodiversity of invasive predators, and to test the efficacy of native predators for invasive predator control. The project will contribute to understanding the natural ecological processes that can be harnessed to restore native species and functional ecosystems on large scales in unconfined landscapes.

Elsa B. Kania Senior Scholars

Dr Patrick Kilby Senior Scholars

Patrick is the Coordinator of the Masters in Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development Program at the Australian National University, and carries out research in gender and development, foreign aid policy, and NGOs.

Patrick’s Fulbright project will see him working with Feed the Future Innovation Labs at Kansas State University to analyse their agricultural research in aid and development programs, and in particular how local communities (particularly women) can adapt this research to their local needs. From this research Patrick will gain an insight into the future directions foreign aid-supported agricultural research may take. The focus will be on the implications for U.S. and Australia’s agricultural development assistance in a rapidly changing world, and most importantly, how this research can have the greatest impact on local communities.

Professor Tim Mehigan Senior Scholars

Tim is a Professor of German and the Deputy Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Queensland.

Tim will use his Fulbright Senior Scholarship to spend time at both the University of Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin’s Harry Ransom Center. In Chicago he will investigate the writer J.M. Coetzee’s links to The Committee of Social Thought, which Coetzee regularly visited from 1996 to 2003. In Austin he will do follow-up research at the Coetzee archive. His aim will be to advance a major project focusing on Coetzee, one of the most important writers in the world today. Beyond this, his visit will consolidate ties between IASH at UQ and the Committee on Social Thought at Chicago, two prominent centres of world-leading research in the Humanities.

Dr Todd Oliynyk Senior Scholars

Todd is an Associate Professor in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Monash University.

The main aim of Todd’s Fulbright project, Gravitating relativistic fluid bodies: a mathematical analysis, is to develop a rigorous mathematical foundation for gravitating relativistic material bodies that is applicable to astrophysical systems. This project will significantly improve current understanding of how matter and gravitational fields behave near the matter-vacuum boundary of physical bodies and provide important guidance for constructing stable numerical schemes to numerically model systems of gravitating relativistic fluid bodies. During his time at Princeton University, Todd will work with leading researchers in the field of Mathematical Relativity and will participate in the activities of the Focussed Research Group in Mathematical General Relativity hosted by the Mathematics Department. He will also visit the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University to collaborate with researchers on aspects of his project.

Professor Stefan Paula Senior Scholars

Stefan is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Chemistry at Purdue University. He is a biochemist who works in the area of computer-assisted drug discovery. As a Fulbright Senior Scholar, he will conduct research on a joint project with Adam McCluskey’s group at the University of Newcastle on the development of new drugs to combat breast cancer. Stefan will develop computational models that predict the behavior of drug-like molecules inside cancer cells. Promising candidates will then be synthesized and tested in bioassays by the McCluskey group. Stefan is eager to learn more about modern synthetic aspects of drug design and establish new professional connections with Australian researchers. His stay in Newcastle will be the start of a new, long-term collaboration between his and Adam McCluskey’s research teams.

Professor Seth C. Rasmussen Senior Scholars

Seth received a B.S. in chemistry from Washington State University in 1990 and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Clemson University in 1994. He then studied conjugated organic polymers as a postdoctoral associate at the University of Oregon in 1995. He accepted a teaching position at Oregon in 1997, before moving to North Dakota State University in 1999. Active in both materials chemistry and the history of chemistry, his research includes the design and synthesis of organic semiconducting materials, solar cells, organic light emitting diodes, the history of materials, and chemical technology in antiquity. He has contributed to books in both materials and history, and has published more than 95 research papers and book chapters.

At Newcastle’s Centre for Organic Electronics, Seth will study the application of new semiconducting polymers (plastics) to organic solar cells and near-infrared photodetectors in order to develop new beneficial technologies for society.

Dr. Paul R. Sanberg Senior Scholars

Dr. Sanberg is Senior Vice President for Research, Innovation & Knowledge Enterprise; Distinguished University Professor; and Executive Director, Center of Excellence for Aging & Brain Repair, University of South Florida (USF). He is an international leader in advancing recognition of academic innovation as founder and President of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and on prominent national committees providing future direction for science and innovation in the United States. His leadership has propelled USF forward in national and international rankings. He led a national dialog to transform academic tenure and promotion to include innovation activities. His scientific work and industry experience were instrumental in translating novel therapeutics to clinical trials and commercialization for neurodegenerative diseases such as stroke, ALS, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. He trained at York University, University of British Columbia, Australian National University, Curtin University, and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, among others. He holds 158 worldwide patents; authored 650+ articles and 14 books with 30,000+ citations; Fellowship in the NAI, Royal Societies of Chemistry, Public Health and Medicine, AAAS, and American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering; received Sigma Xi’s McGovern Science & Society Award; Florida Inventors Hall of Fame inductee; and AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador. In Australia, he will share expertise in changing the culture to enhance industry engagement, entrepreneurship and impact of academic innovation on society.

Professor Jaime Schultz Senior Scholars

Jaime earned a BA in English and Spanish from Luther College (Decorah, Iowa), and a PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of Iowa. She is an associate professor of Kinesiology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State. Jaime specializes in sport history, with a particular focus on gender, sexuality, and racial politics. She will use her time at the University of Technology, Sydney to pursue research that considers the interactions between culture and sporting bodies.

Professor Amal Trivedi MD MPH Senior Scholars

Amal Trivedi, M.D., M.P.H., is Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice at Brown University and a Research Investigator at the Providence VA Medical Center. He is a general internist and health services researcher whose work focuses on measurement of quality in health care, racial and socioeconomic disparities in health care, and the effects of federal and state health policies on vulnerable populations. Dr. Trivedi’s research has been published in Health Affairs, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, and the New England Journal of Medicine. He directs Brown University’s doctoral program in health services research and a VA post-doctoral fellowship; and teaches courses on quality measurement and health services research methods for graduate students.

During his Fulbright Fellowship, Dr. Trivedi will collaborate with colleagues at the University of Melbourne to evaluate the impact of the Australian government’s efforts to close Indigenous health disparities.

Professor Deborah Widiss Senior Scholars

Deborah is a Professor of Law and Ira C. Batman Faculty Fellow at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. Her recent research has focused on pregnancy discrimination, same-sex marriage, and the intersection between domestic violence and employment. Her work has appeared in leading law reviews, and she has received several awards for her scholarship. She has also been consulted as an expert on these subjects by numerous media outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. More information on her professional background and links to her publications are available here.

As a Fulbright scholar, Deborah will be studying Australia’s support for workers who are also juggling family responsibilities. Her research will focus on Australia’s recently-enacted paid parental leave scheme and other legal supports, such as paid time off to care for family members and a right to request a flexible working schedule, that are unavailable in the United States. Deborah plans to use semi-structured interviews with stakeholders to learn about Australia’s legal reforms in this area and consider the lessons they may hold for policy makers and researchers in the United States.

Deborah will be traveling to Australia with her husband and two children. They are all really looking forward to the adventure.

Professor Marcia A. Zug Senior Scholars

Marcia is Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina. She teaches Family Law, Immigration Law, and American Indian law. Her work focuses on the treatment of Native American families and the removal of Indian children. In the United States, she has worked with national organizations, such as the National Indian Child Welfare Association and The Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and individual Indian tribes.

Her Fulbright scholarship will be a comparative project examining the different ways the United States and Australia have responded to the removal of indigenous children. Despite a very similar history, the two countries have a fairly different approach to addressing the break up of native families. Marcia hopes her research will help identify the most effective aspects of these different methods and suggest new ways of reducing indigenous child removals. She looks forward to working with her Australian colleagues on these important issues.

Professor Matthew Clarke Professional Scholars

Matthew is currently Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University and an executive member of the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership (CHL).

Matthew will use his Fulbright Scholarship in Non-Profit Leadership to spend three months at Save the Children USA, Harvard University and Tufts University to develop formal relationships between these institutions and the CHL. These partnerships will enhance the professional development of humanitarian workers in responding to complex humanitarian emergencies. Working with Save the Children USA, Matthew will increase connections between aid agencies in the U.S. and the CHL in Australia and create new professional development initiatives that respond specifically to the needs of humanitarian workers responding to disasters in North and South America.

Daniel C. Dennett Professional Scholars

Daniel Dennett is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, where he has been teaching since 1971. He is responsible, along with his colleagues, for starting a Ph.D. program in Cognitive Science at Tufts University. He is the author of several books and articles about consciousness, free will, religion, and evolution, including Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995) and most recently, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds (2017). He has won many awards, including the APA Barwise Prize (2004), the Richard Dawkins Prize (2007), and the SINe medal at the University of Padova (2016). In 2012 he won the Erasmus Prize in Amsterdam. During his time at Charles Darwin University, Dennett will focus on consciousness research, and why the key steps to progress are so hard for many people to accept.

Dr David Dorman Professional Scholars

David’s formal training includes chemistry, veterinary medicine, and toxicology. His research interests focus on three broad areas: toxicology, chemical risk assessment, and cognition and olfaction in dogs. David teaches courses in veterinary toxicology, veterinary ethics, and cell and molecular biology at NCSU. David has also served extensively on governmental and non-governmental organisations advisory boards tasked with assessing the impact of chemicals on human and environmental health. While in Australia, he will draw on these experiences to provide lectures for the public and academic community as well as develop several workshops on chemical risk assessment for the University of Adelaide and the Australian Department of Health. The overarching goal of this project is to improve ways that scientists and regulators can prevent adverse health effects of environmental chemical exposure thereby protecting public health.

Dr Stephan Frühling Professional Scholars

Stephan is an Associate Professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University.

As the Fulbright Professional Scholar in Australia-U.S. Alliance Studies, based at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Stephan will examine why both countries have created fewer permanent arrangements to implement their treaty commitments than is the case in other U.S. alliances.  He will examine, through interviews in Canberra and Washington, whether this will remain sustainable as strategic pressures in the Asia-Pacific increase, and make recommendations on how Australia and the United States could improve the political-military management of closer alliance cooperation through an alliance strategic concept, integrated staff or new command arrangements.

Judge Paul Howard Professional Scholars

Paul hears cases in Australia’s busiest federal trial court, the Federal Circuit Court of Australia.

The aim of Paul’s research as a Fulbright Scholar is to improve access to justice in Australia by reducing court delays. Properly directed federal funding for the Australian federal trial courts is the key. The judiciary in the United States is integrally involved with the legislature in the setting of federal court budgets each year. Paul will use his Fulbright Scholarship to examine the process of federal court funding in the United States and in particular, the interaction between the federal judiciary and the U.S. Congress in this process with a view to formulating a similar proposal suitable to the Australian federal landscape. In order to conduct this research Paul will be based at the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C. and also at Harvard University.

Dr Simon Humphrys Professional Scholars

Simon is a passionate advocate for improving the options that agricultural producers use to manage pest animals that affect how they grow our food. He is currently a Program Leader in the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre where he works across its 27 government and commercial partners to take research concepts through to new products aimed at managing Australia’s most destructive agricultural pests. Simon’s career focus has been applied R&D in biotechnology, pharmaceutical and animal health companies to register new products in Australia, the United States and the EU.

Simon’s Fulbright program will expose him to world-leading wildlife toxicology testing/modelling and he’ll work with registration specialists to incorporate the modelling outcomes into registration data packages. These can be used in Australia and the U.S. to more efficiently expedite approval of effective and safer-to-use products for grain producers to protect crops from mouse plagues.

Dr Belinda Russon Professional Scholars

Belinda is a passionate adult education activist and is the CEO of Australia’s oldest indigenous education provider, Tranby.

Belinda’s Fulbright Professional Scholarship in Vocational Education and Training (VET) will examine the positive emotional, cultural and social factors associated with Indigenous learners in the VET sector, which contribute to resilience, self-motivation and academic success. Belinda will collaborate with Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and will evaluate the proven success of U.S. College leadership and mentoring programs. Findings from her research, will be used to engage and retain indigenous students across the Australian VET sector leading to higher graduation rates. Belinda seeks to promote the positive benefits of VET education and the inarguable impact that the acquisition of job-related and technical skills have on the lives of Indigenous learners and their communities. Her Fulbright Scholarship is a means to start a dialogue on the value of adult education and to create further opportunities for Indigenous adults in Australia.

Dr Peter Stanwell Professional Scholars

Peter is a medical imaging research scientist with a strong interest in understanding the biochemical and biophysical changes that occur following brain injury. He has a goal of providing quantitative metrics, via MRI scanning, to inform evidence-based strategies to optimise medical treatment of traumatic brain injuries.

Peter is seeking to achieve this by working with Dr Alexander Lin, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Dr Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT for the duration of his Fulbright Scholarship, and he hopes to strengthen existing collaborative ties between these centres and the University of Newcastle. While in Boston, Peter is looking forward to increasing his technical research skills in fluorescence microscopy and brain connectivity methods, and expanding his knowledge of implementation science to facilitate translation of his research findings beyond the academic community. Through this he will deliver positive healthcare, community and societal outcomes following traumatic brain injury.

Charles R Wolfe, Esq, MRP, JD Professional Scholars

Chuck is Principal of Seeing Better Cities Group, a consulting firm, and an American lawyer. He is Affiliate Associate Professor of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington in Seattle, and a Visiting Scholar at KTH University, Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

He holds professional degrees in urban planning and law, and complements his consulting and law practices with writing on urban issues. His books, Seeing the Better City, (2017), and Urbanism Without Effort (2013), prioritize the visual sense, pluralistic observation methodologies, and tools addressing urban change.

As a Fulbright Specialist, Chuck will be based at JCU in Cairns, and will facilitate community consultation, related action plans, and outcomes. He will engage stakeholders and local government in Cairns and Townsville through one-day events based on the UN New Urban Agenda. These cities present unique landscapes, climates and more remote locations particularly suitable for consultations on positive change and good-quality urban environments.

Dr Louise Byrne Postdoctoral Scholars

Louise is a Lived Experience Mental Health academic. Her work is informed by her personal experience of significant mental health challenges, service use, and periods of healing.

During her Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship, Louise will work in the Yale University Program for Recovery and Community Health.  Louise’s research focuses on the emerging lived experience mental health workforce and will explore factors that assist in the successful inclusion of lived experience roles within the wider workforce. These roles contribute to better outcomes for mental health service users.  However, the lived experience workforce faces many barriers.  Findings will be compared to Louise’s previous studies in Australia and used to inform the development of a toolkit to aid the inclusion of lived experience roles.

Dr Gwilym Croucher Postdoctoral Scholars

Gwilym is Senior Lecturer in the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education and Principal Policy Adviser in the University of Melbourne’s Chancellery. While based at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, Gwilym will examine an emerging dilemma for governments and universities in supporting research. University based research efforts are crucial to solving global challenges, from climate change to improving human health. Increasingly complex problems require long-term and multidisciplinary research approaches.  However, ensuring ongoing support and funds is a significant challenge for universities and governments.

Gwilym’s Fulbright project will engage policy makers and university leaders, as well as colleagues at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and at UC Davis, to develop new options for system design, university strategy and government policy to help provide greater surety for research systems in California and Australia, and the outcomes they facilitate.

Dr Stephanie Gilbert Postdoctoral Scholars

Stephanie is the Coordinator of Teaching Quality and Development at the University of Newcastle’s Wollotuka Institute. Her research focuses bringing disparate communities together through the provision of culturally minded social spaces, literature and tertiary curricula.

Stephanie’s Fulbright project, Living as Indigenous: Inside the Dysmorphic Body, provides a major opportunity to build on research into the creation of bodily informed identity particularly for Indigenous populations. She will explore the way body dysphoria might also be etched into psyche, body, and genetics across generations, and work with researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz to understand and articulate the ways that body dysmorphic concepts might exist in indigenous populations in the U.S.

Dr Claire Higgins Postdoctoral Scholars

Claire is a Senior Research Associate at the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW, where she specialises in refugee policy history. Prior to joining the Kaldor Centre Claire completed a DPhil in History at Merton College, the University of Oxford.

As a Fulbright Scholar Claire will spend six months at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration to investigate how the United States has used ‘in-country’ resettlement programs. These visa pathways allow people who are in refugee-like situations to apply for entry into the United States while still in their home countries–for example, by submitting an application at an embassy. Claire’s Fulbright project is part of her ongoing research into ways that countries such as Australia can expand safe and orderly pathways for refugees. Her findings will build historical knowledge of in-country programs and shed light on their future potential.

Dr Simon O’Rourke Postdoctoral Scholars

Simon is a Police Inspector currently assigned to the Counter Terrorism and Emergency Response Command at Western Australia Police. His current role is to develop and prepare senior Police Commanders for the challenges they will face during a major police operation, where they will be required to make critical decisions in a highly complex and fluid environment. His Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship will see him attend the Harvard Kennedy School as a visiting Fellow, at the Program on Crisis Leadership.

Simon’s Fulbright project at Harvard University presents a unique opportunity for police to engage with a practitioner focused and internationally renowned centre of excellence in the field of Crisis Leadership. This partnership will identify ways to enhance the professional development of senior police officers, who will fulfil the role of Police Commander during a major incident, including terrorism.

Dr Flavia Di Pietro Postdoctoral Scholars

Flavia is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Early Career Research Fellow, working in the Neural Imaging Laboratory at the Sydney Medical School. Using technologies like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Flavia investigates the critical role of the brain in chronic pain, and how the ever-changing and plastic nature of the brain influences our perception of pain.  Chronic pain is poorly understood and places a huge burden not only on the individual, but on healthcare systems and economies around the world. Flavia’s research has made a significant contribution to the understanding of pain and potential avenues for treatment.

Flavia’s Fulbright Scholarship will take her to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where she will work with Professor Robert Coghill on testing a novel and non-invasive treatment for chronic widespread pain in children and adolescents.

Andrew W.M. Pomeroy Postdoctoral Scholars

Andrew is a Coastal Oceanographer and Engineer, and a Postdoctoral Researcher in coral reef studies at The UWA Oceans Institute.

For his Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship, Andrew will work with researchers at the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center of the US Geological Survey in Santa Cruz to understand the dynamics of sediment transport in coral reefs. Elevated sediment volumes are the dominant local stressor to coral reef ecosystems around the globe, which may be affected by anthropogenic activities, differences in coral reef morphology (i.e., shape and size) and the prevalent forcing conditions (i.e., waves and currents). Andrew’s project aims to develop quantitative methods to estimate baseline sediment volumes. Understanding these baselines is fundamental to distinguish the contribution of natural processes to the volume of sediment in reefs, which will inform management decisions, as well as enable targeted interventions to better protect coral reef eco-systems.

Andrea Sylvia Biscoveanu Postgraduate Students

Sylvia recently graduated from the Pennsylvania State University with degrees in Physics and Spanish and honors in astrophysics. During her undergraduate career, she conducted research on ultra high energy cosmic rays using data from the Pierre Auger Observatory and on gravitational waves using data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), presenting her research at conferences in Spain, Argentina, Australia, and the United States. She will continue her study of gravitational waves through her Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship at Monash University, using advanced data analysis techniques to improve and expand current gravitational wave search pipelines, uncovering new information about astrophysical gravitational wave sources and testing our understanding of the fundamental theory of gravity.

Following her time at Monash, Sylvia will continue her research with LIGO while pursuing a PhD in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Arjun Bisen Postgraduate Students

Arjun is an Australian diplomat who has served in Cambodia, where he was responsible for the Australian Government’s engagement on domestic politics, human rights, trade, commercial affairs, media relations, public diplomacy, and aid programs on disabilities, de-mining, electoral reform and private sector development.

Arjun will use his Fulbright-Anne Wexler Scholarship to undertake a Masters in Public Policy in the U.S, researching China’s relationship with weak states, its impact on security in the Indo-Pacific region, and possible responses by Australian and U.S. Governments. He will also explore the opportunities presented by emerging technologies and advances in behavioural sciences to improve the implementation of Australia’s foreign policy and deliver development outcomes.

Turner Block Postgraduate Students

Turner earned her BS in psychology at Fordham University located in Bronx, New York in 2017. She spent her four years at Fordham as a member of the women’s soccer team and was named Captain for her senior season. Off the field, she was a research assistant on numerous studies for the Department of Psychology. Additionally, she completed her Honors Thesis on athlete pre-screening mental health measures and their perceptions of the mental health services offered.

Turner will continue her research while at the School of Human Movement Studies at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Her specific focus will be the athletic identity formation of Paralympic swimmers with cerebral palsy as they complete a performance-focused training program. She looks forward to learning more about how this information may be beneficial to an athlete’s performance, and plans to bring these insights back to the U.S.

Pearse Buchanan Postgraduate Students

Pearse is a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania. He is interested in defining how the ocean has responded to, and driven climate change in the past through exploring the complex interaction between ocean physics and biogeochemistry.

Pearse’s Fulbright project will focus on the oceanic nitrogen cycle, which forms an essential component of the ocean’s weighty role in the climate system. Past variations in nitrogen are tell-tale signs of changes in ocean productivity, and therefore whether the ocean acted as a net contributor, or consumer of greenhouse gases. Pearse will work with researchers at the Sigman Lab at Princeton University to explore how past changes in the oceanic nitrogen cycle affected the air-sea exchange of two major greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O). In this way, the ocean’s continued role in the changing climate system can be better defined and predicted.

Rachel Buissereth Postgraduate Students

Rachel earned her BA from Rice University in 2017 in Environmental Science and Theatre. While the two fields seem unrelated, they intersect in her passion for public speaking, exchanging perspectives, and preserving a seemingly extinct culture: storytelling. During her time in Australia, Buissereth will conduct a transdisciplinary research project exploring different ways to break boundaries between environmental, technological, and social factors affecting indigenous peoples in the Fitzroy River Catchment.

She will use various participatory methods, such as in-depth interviews, participatory 3-D mapping workshops, and participatory GIS mapping workshops, to create avenues of understanding between indigenous and scientific knowledge and to encourage informed decision making on future agricultural projects in the Fitzroy River Catchment. Through storytelling, Buissereth aims to facilitate conversation, collaboration, and the equitable sharing of knowledge between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in Australia and in similar communities world-wide.

Grace Chipperfield Postgraduate Students

Grace is a PhD student in Creative Writing at Flinders University, South Australia, where she also tutors in English Literature. She is researching what it is to be an American citizen and the bidirectional relationship between individual and national identity, using the works of American author David Foster Wallace to explore what he described as U.S. citizens’ ‘adolescent’ approach to their citizenship.

With her Fulbright Scholarship,  Grace will spend a semester studying at the University of Texas at Austin, in the College of Liberal Arts. She will also use this opportunity to access the David Foster Wallace archive at the Harry Ransom Center. After Texas, she will travel to Illinois to do field research for her novel that will complement the theme of her thesis. Her project will contribute to understanding America’s contemporary and potential national identity, with a view to return and apply this knowledge to an Australian context.

Jody Fisher Postgraduate Students

Jody Fisher is currently undertaking a PhD in applied mathematics investigating microbial systems at Flinders University, South Australia.

Jody will use her Fulbright Scholarship to travel to a specialist complex networks research group and explore alternate mathematical modelling methods for microbial communities. It has only recently been recognised that microbes are often the dominant force in regulating ecosystems from the local to global scale. Yet, with more bacterial species on Earth than there are stars in the universe, defining their functions and interactions is a problem of enormous scope. A complex network approach will allow Jody to explore how individual parts within microbial populations influence the whole. Findings will contribute to current understanding of the governing properties of these critically important systems, and potentially open avenues through which it may ultimately be possible to predict and control them.

Simon Jankowski Postgraduate Students

Simon is a Masters of Hydrogeology student at the University of Western Australia, focused on regional groundwater management strategies. Simon will perform research at Stanford University’s Centre for Groundwater Evaluation and Management in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences.

His research will focus on the development of new geophysical and remote sensing imaging techniques to support sustainable groundwater management in California’s Central Valley. California’s Central Valley is a $20b agricultural precinct reliant on groundwater irrigation during periods of drought. Simon will use his findings to inform comparable Australian systems and seek to apply his research internationally – specifically in developing nations in order to encourage sustainable water management practices.

Simon’s research will be translational. It will contribute to more effective water resource management strategies that can be applied by governments in Australia and within the world’s most vulnerable climatic regions.

Noah Dylan Johnson Postgraduate Students

Noah recently earned his BS in physics and mathematics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. While there he conducted computational research on spin-based silicon quantum computing architectures under Dr. Mark Eriksson. In addition, he was invited to attend an undergraduate school on quantum information processing at the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo.

For his Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship, Noah will work on a silicon-based quantum computing research project at the University of New South Wales (Sydney) in the laboratory of Professor Andrea Morello, the manager of the Quantum Spin Control program in the Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC²T). Quantum Computation is a newly theorized computation scheme that utilizes the laws of quantum physics to store and manipulate information in a different way than classical computers. Noah’s research will focus on developing and testing a novel architecture for electrically tuneable readout of quantum information from silicon-based spin quantum bits, a specific hardware implementation of a quantum bit, which is the basic building block of a quantum computer. This research will give Noah the opportunity to contribute vitally to the scaling up of a silicon-based quantum computer and the unique chance to act as ambassador between the silicon quantum computing communities in the U.S. and Australia.

Marryum Kahloon Postgraduate Students

Marryum graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) and Bachelor of International Relations (Business) from Bond University. Throughout her undergraduate degree, Marryum was actively involved in student life serving as President of the Law Students’ Association and as a councillor on the Student Philanthropy Council. She also helped establish the Bond Law Clinic, a pro bono legal service. Marryum was the Australian representative at the 2015 G(irls)20 Summit in Istanbul. She has also previously served as a UNICEF Young Ambassador. Since graduating Marryum has worked as Associate to President Margaret McMurdo AC in the Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Queensland. She has also worked as a volunteer at the Salvos Legal Asylum Seeker Clinic, assisting asylum seekers with their visa applications.

For her Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship, Marryum hopes to study a Master of Laws (LLM) at Columbia University, focusing on public international law and international refugee law.

Maureen Kessler Postgraduate Students

Maureen is pursuing a PhD in Ecology and Environmental Sciences at Montana State University. As a Fulbright Postgraduate Scholar, she will use modelling and field-based methods to study the disease ecology of Hendra virus. The virus circulates in Australian flying foxes, but cross-species transmission results in sporadic fatal disease in horses and humans. Recently, risk has increased following widespread urbanization of the inherently migratory bats, likely in response to habitat loss. These trends raise a number of conservation concerns for flying foxes, which are critically important pollinators and seed dispersers. In collaboration with Dr. Hamish McCallum at Griffith University, Maureen will work with Dr. Justin Welbergen at Western Sydney University to understand how changes in food availability and nutrition alter the foraging behavior of flying foxes, driving urban habituation and Hendra virus spillover. Understanding the ecological drivers of urban habituation will inform effective management strategies designed to simultaneously protect flying foxes and mitigate disease risk.

Victor Anthony Lopez-Carmen Postgraduate Students

Victor Lopez-Carmen earned a B.S. degree (Health Sciences and Chemistry) with honors from Ithaca College in May, 2017. As an enrolled member of the Crow Creek Sioux tribe with Yaqui heritage, he has a strong will to utilize his background in health, science, and advocacy to serve Indigenous Peoples globally.

Through his Fulbright award, Victor will attain a Master of Public Health at Western Sydney University while conducting a project with urban Aboriginal families who have sent their children to boarding schools. Using Indigenous methodology, in-depth conversational interviews, and group yarning circles, he will articulate the reasons, needs, feelings, expectations and experiences of Aboriginal parents & carers who have sent or are sending their Aboriginal children to urban boarding schools. The project will fill a void in the research that will allow better understanding of how boarding is experienced by Aboriginal families in urban contexts. The implications of this research can be used to provide concrete recommendations and info to assist boarding schools when engaging with Aboriginal families of Aboriginal boarding school students, thus creating educational environments that better promote sociocultural health and resilience

Caroline S. Park Postgraduate Students

A native of Whippany, New Jersey, Caroline received her undergraduate education at Harvard University in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology, with a secondary field in Economics. During her undergraduate years, Caroline studied metabolic syndrome at the Cowan Laboratory of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. As a Herchel Smith Fellow in 2016, she researched the effects of maternal malnutrition on fetal development. An avid traveler, Caroline has also worked on various humanitarian projects throughout Southeast Asia and southern Africa.

For her Fulbright Anne Wexler Scholarship, Caroline will pursue a Master of Philosophy in Medicine at the University of Melbourne. She will conduct research at the intersection of climate change and public health, specifically focusing on how vulnerable populations respond to climate-influenced food insecurity.

Michael Raitor Postgraduate Students

Michael completed his B.S. in Biomechanical Engineering at Stanford University in June of 2017. His undergraduate research in the CHARM Lab focused on haptic feedback for medical devices. Michael will use his Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship to spend 10 months at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) working with Professor Nigel Lovell. At UNSW, Michael will develop a wearable system to monitor gait and falls in patients during their daily lives. This system will be used to answer fundamental biomechanical questions such as how gait changes with age and how falls naturally occur. Additionally, this system will be used for long-term monitoring to warn patients when they are at an increased risk of falling so that a medical intervention, such as balance training, can be given.

Michael will use the time in Australia to create new professional networks in the fields of biomechanics and medical devices, and begin a collaborative research project between Stanford University and UNSW focused on preventing fall-related injuries.

Victoria Reynolds Postgraduate Students

Tori is a PhD student with the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland with a joint affiliation with CSIRO.

For her Fulbright Scholarship, Tori will be working in the Environmental Science Department of Emory University helping to develop a standardised protocol for quantifying insect-collected pollen using DNA meta-barcoding techniques. The outcomes of this project will increase understanding of plant-pollinator interactions, with particular applications for the complex mosaic agricultural landscapes that dominate most of the planet today. This in turn will help decipher how pollinators are foraging in agro-ecosystems around the world. This is a key area of research for the future of agricultural production and biodiversity conservation. Tori will also spend her time in the US developing a research network of American and Australian scientists at the forefront of insect pollination research, through collaborative research and academic enquiry.

James Riggall Postgraduate Students

James is currently the Managing Director of Bitlink a company that specialises in STEM education and teacher training.  He is also currently the President of Startup Tasmania and is one of the founders of the Battery Shed, a community hackerspace in Launceston, Tasmania.

James will use his Fulbright Scholarship to travel to Seattle and work with Bellevue College to establish their own on-campus hackerspace, the Collaboratory.  This project has evolved, in part, out of an ongoing collaboration between James and staff at Bellevue College.  The Fulbright Scholarship will enable this partnership to be further developed and for James to work with the team at Bellevue College, and other partners, to undertake research into how to best teach STEM subjects in a collaborative, project-based way, where teaching staff and project partners are distributed all over the world.

Jessa Rogers Postgraduate Students

Jessa is a leading Aboriginal education specialist, currently in the position of Assistant Professor in Education at the University of Canberra. Jessa started her career as a teacher, and in 2015 was the inaugural principal of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls’ boarding school in Far North Queensland. Her PhD research looks at the experiences of Aboriginal and Māori girls attending contemporary boarding schools, using photoyarn, an Indigenous arts-based method she is developing. As a creative artist, Jessa’s undergraduate studies at Queensland University of Technology focused on film, television and drama, while her current research draws on visual arts methodologies including photography and ink-work. Jessa sits on the National NAIDOC Committee, and in 2016 was named ANU Postgraduate Student of the Year, and QUT Young Alumnus of the Year.

For her Fulbright Scholarship, Jessa will be a Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, between the Peabody Museum and HUNAP (Harvard University Native American Program) to grow her Indigenous research skills and further her research in Indigenous girls’ education.

Michelle Frances Rourke Postgraduate Students

Once viewed as the common heritage of humankind, scientific information and biological samples are fast becoming commodified articles of trade. Michelle’s research examines the legal basis for this commodification with a specific focus on viruses. Viruses pose the greatest risk to global health due to their ability to rapidly mutate, jump host species and evade vaccines and drug treatments. It is essential that scientists maintain access to virus samples on which to conduct lifesaving research.

The Fulbright Scholarship will enable Michelle to work alongside global health law experts at the O’Neill Institute to characterise the matrix of international laws and policies that govern virus access and benefit sharing. Michelle’s objective is to develop an access and benefit sharing system for all viruses that will better ensure global health security and a more equitable distribution of the benefits arising from medical research.

Dr Eddy Thientosapol Postgraduate Students

Eddy is a practising medical oncologist and PhD student at The Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology, Sydney. For his Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship, Eddy will train under Professor Michel Nussenzweig at the Rockefeller University, mastering recently developed molecular biology techniques to identify and characterise specific DNA mutations. DNA damage is the underlying cause of all cancers and, to combat this, our cells have DNA repair pathways to reverse these processes. Incorrect repair of DNA breaks is involved in gene translocation, a type of mutation leading to the activation of cancer-causing genes. Gene translocations are especially important in the development of lymphoma and leukaemia.

During his Fulbright program at the Rockefeller University, Eddy will learn translocation capture sequencing, a tool to precisely identify gene translocations. On his return to Australia, he hopes to train fellow scientists in these methods to advance cancer research and clinical practice.

Jessa Thurman Postgraduate Students

Jessa will study the use of the Anastatus wasp as a biological control agent for pests in Macadamia farms near Brisbane, Australia. This research project will include a new species description of the wasp and a study of the ecology of both the raised and wild varieties of this wasp. Insights from this project will extend into  her research on the use of parasitoid wasps  and hopefully guide the development of new biological control agents. Jessa aspires to improve our usage of biological control agents to regulate pest populations in crops by understanding how these insects and other arthropods interact with pests and the environment. These studies may also be based on insights from land managers. This combination of research interests should improve overall execution of biological control on farms globally. These interests will be pursued throughout the completion of her PhD in Entomology and possibly furthered as a professor.

Alison Whittaker Postgraduate Students

Alison is a Gomeroi law scholar and author. She is currently a Research Associate at the University of Technology Sydney’s Faculty of Law and Centre for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges. Her work centres on the contact Indigenous women make with Australian justice systems, Indigenous ways of knowing and doing law and Indigenous legal research methodologies. Her independent research focusses on contemporary forms of Indigenous lawmaking and their relationship to Indigenous self-determination and gendered violence.

Alison will use her Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship to complete Harvard Law School’s Masters of Laws (LLM) program. She will spend her time in the LLM program exploring similarities and tensions in the enforcement and development of Indigenous lawmaking alongside emerging responses by Indigenous women against gendered violence. In doing so, Alison hopes to foster relationships between the Indigenous Australian and Native American scholarship that makes governance and violence its focus, and contribute to implementing it locally.