Alumni Profiles

Professor Dean J. Kotlowski Distinguished Chair

Dean is a professor of history at Salisbury University, specialising in United States political, diplomatic, and transnational history. He is the author of Nixon’s Civil Rights: Politics, Principle, and Policy (Harvard University Press, 2001) and Paul V. McNutt and the Age of FDR (Indiana University Press, 2015) and the editor of The European Union: From Jean Monnet to the Euro (Ohio University Press, 2000). Based at the Australian National University, he will use his Fulbright to research his current book project, a study of the parallels and connections between United States and Australian indigenous policy between 1945 and 2000.

Dean received his PhD in history at Indiana University, Bloomington, in 1998. He has lectured in twenty-three countries across North America, Europe, and Australasia, including on two earlier Fulbright Scholar Awards. He is excited to share his insights on—and passion about—the modern American presidency.

Christopher Barrett Senior Scholars

“In this world of plenty, almost half of the world’s seven billion people live on two US dollars a day or less. Between one third and one half suffer under-nutrition due to insufficient intake of calories, protein or critical micronutrients such as vitamin A, iodine and iron.”

Professor Christopher Barrett, from the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, has won a 2012 Fulbright Senior Scholarship. Through his Fulbright, Christopher will spend six months at Monash University in Melbourne undertaking research into the effects of global food markets on poverty and food insecurity in the world.

“My research explores why such unnecessary injustice continues to disfigure a rich, technologically advanced world, and what individuals and institutions can do to reduce avoidable human suffering,” Chris said.

Chris’ research program aims to establish how poor households’ dependence on food markets is evolving. His research will include looking at the effects of new contract farming arrangements or humanitarian agency supply chains, and how changing food prices and food price risk and international market integration are co-evolving in their impacts on poor households. He will also examine what policies or financial instruments might be appropriate to help cushion any adverse effects of observed changes.

“Through the research program this Fulbright Scholarship will launch, I hope to shed light on poor households’ complex relations with global food markets so as to improve and inform ongoing policy debates in this arena,” Chris said.

This project will build on existing work he has already undertaken, and will establish research collaborations in Australia that he hopes will continue well beyond his Fulbright Scholarship.

Chris has an A.B., History, Princeton University; an M.Sc., Development Economics, University of Oxford, on a previous Fulbright Scholarship; and a dual PhD in Agricultural Economics and Economics with certificate in African Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also the Director of the Stimulating Agricultural and Rural Transformation (StART) Initiative , Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development. He has also published extensively. His research interests include poverty, food insecurity, economic policy and the structural transformation of low-income societies, issues of individual and market behavior under risk and uncertainty, and the interrelationship between poverty, food security and environmental stress in developing areas.

Professor Diane Fatkin Senior Scholars

Diane is a molecular cardiologist and leads a research group at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Sydney. She also holds appointments as Professor (conjoint), at St Vincent’s Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney, and Honorary Medical Officer in the Cardiology Department at St Vincent’s Hospital. Diane’s research is focused on understanding the genetic underpinnings of inherited heart muscle and rhythm disorders and spans from studies in families to zebrafish models.

Diane will use the Fulbright Scholarship to undertake a sabbatical study visit to the Seidman Laboratory at Harvard Medical School in Boston. She plans to gain experience in cutting-edge techniques for studying heart function at the molecular level. These innovative research tools promise to provide unprecedented insights into causes of genetic heart disease, opening new opportunities for disease treatment and prevention.

Associate Professor Donna Hancox Senior Scholars

Donna is part of the School of Creative Practice in the Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. She is an international leader in creative community engagement and arts-led social change projects. Her research focuses on the potential for arts, culture and creativity to foster healthy and resilient communities, and the co-creation of innovative methods for under-represented groups to share their lived experiences and agitate for positive community-led change. Donna has led research projects collaborating with rural and remote communities, culturally and linguistically diverse groups and First Nations peoples. In 2013 Donna was a Leverhulme Visiting Fellow at Bath Spa University and a 2017 Smithsonian Research Fellow at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum.

Donna’s Fulbright Scholarship will explore large scale collaborations between universities, industry and community partners to progress the role of arts and culture in global public health.

Zdenko Rengel Senior Scholars

“The next ‘green’ revolution is likely to come from breeding for improved root systems”.

Zed Rengel is a Winthrop Professor in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Western Australia, with a PhD from Louisiana State University. He will do research at Kansas State University, Kansas, from July to December, 2014. The research focuses on the identification of molecular markers associated with specific wheat root traits and the incorporation of that knowledge into the ROOTMAP 3-D simulation model. The simulations can be used to search for optimality of root architecture and function in diverse environments, and aid in breeding improved genotypes with enhanced efficiency of water and nutrient use.

 “The next ‘green’ revolution is likely to come from breeding for improved root systems because the arable area in the world is limited and has been declining. Computer simulations of root systems will allow scientists to reduce costs associated with field trials aimed at finding new crop genotypes efficient in taking up water and nutrients from soils.”

Professor Andrew Walter Senior Scholars

Andrew’s research explores how politics influences the governance of capital flows at national and global levels. He has worked in international banking and previously held tenured academic positions at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Recently, Andrew’s award-winning research has shown how the accumulation of household wealth over the past century has transformed the management and political consequences of financial crises. His current interdisciplinary research project, supported by the Australian Research Council, explores the nature, causes and consequences of the securitisation of foreign investment in politically sensitive sectors, critical infrastructure and data assets.

Andrew will use his time at SIS in Washington, D.C. to investigate foreign investment policy in the United States and to develop research and policy networks that will be invaluable resources for his research team.

Melissa Ward Postdoctoral Scholars

Melissa recently graduated from University of California, Davis with her Ph.D. in Marine Ecology, where she studied how coastal habitats can serve to mitigate climate change. In particular, she investigated how seagrass meadows mitigate ocean acidification through photosynthesis – making it easier for oysters and other calcifying organisms to live in or near meadows.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Melissa will conduct related work on climate change solutions with Dr Peter Macreadie’s Blue Carbon Lab at Deakin University in Melbourne for ten months. Specifically, she will investigate how Australia’s mangroves, seagrass meadows, and tidal marshes sequester and store carbon in their underlying sediment for millennia. By reducing atmospheric CO2, these habitats serve to combat the impacts of climate change on coastal economies and environments. Melissa also plans to use her time in Australia to develop her international network and gain new perspectives on climate policy outside the U.S.

Benjamin Cheah Postgraduate Students

“Motor neurone disease (MND) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease. It involves the progressive death of neurones in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary movement. Sufferers develop profound disability and typically die within three years from onset of muscle weakness.”

Benjamin Cheah, a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, is the winner of the 2011 Fulbright New South Wales Scholarship, supported by the NSW Government and NSW universities. Through his Fulbright fellowship, Benjamin will spend twelve months in the Department of Biostatistics, at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland conducting statistical research with relevance to MND in the hope of furthering our understanding of this complex disease. “I plan to research MND from angles that are different from what constitutes current, mainstream practise in neuroscience, particularly in Australia,” Benjamin said.

Benjamin will use an emerging technique called functional data  analysis, which will enable scientists and statisticians to extract more information from high-dimensional neurophysiological data than methods currently available. Through this work he will combine his neuroscience background with complex statistics.“Functional data analysis will enable us to capture the complete ‘story’ behind our data.”

“With respect to motor neurone disease, this analysis will enable more information to be extracted from data we have collected in our lab, thereby demonstrating how the disease evolves over time and potentially helping to hasten the discovery of a cure.” “Neuroscience encompasses many different fields, from genetics, imaging, as well as my primary field of neurophysiology. As such, enormous amounts of data are arising from all these new technologies. We need innovative strategies for making sense of all this data.”

Benjamin hopes to establish a neurostatistics group at Neuroscience Research Australia upon returning to Australia. The group will comprise scientists from biomedical and mathematical streams collaborating to revolutionise our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases and break down the barriers to those elusive cures.

Benjamin has a BA in Japanese and BSci (Medicine, First Class Honours) from the University of New South Wales and a Masters of Biostatistics from Macquarie University. He has won various awards and scholarships including a Brain Sciences UNSW PhD scholarship stipend and the 2010 Pfizer Biostatistics Collaboration of Australia Award for Excellence. In his spare time, Benjamin enjoys gardening, listening to music, swimming, jogging and rock-climbing. He is also a St. John’s ambulance first-aid volunteer. The prestigious Fulbright program is the largest educational scholarship of its kind, created by U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright and the U.S. Government in 1946. Aimed at promoting mutual understanding through educational exchange, it operates between the U.S. and 155 countries. In Australia, the scholarships are funded by the Australian and U.S. Governments and corporate partners and administered by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission in Canberra. Benjamin is one of 26 talented Australians to be recognised as a Fulbright Scholar in 2011.

Monique Hurley Postgraduate Students

Monique holds a Bachelor of Laws (First class honours) and Bachelor of Arts (Politics) from Monash University.  During her university studies, Monique interned at the Parliament of Victoria, the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law and Justice Connect (formerly the Public Interest Law Clearing House). Monique went on complete her Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice with the College of Law and was admitted to practice in December 2012.  She worked for two years as a lawyer at Clayton Utz, working across the firm’s corporate, litigation and administrative law practices.  She went on to spend one year working as an Associate to the Honourable Justice Sloss at the Supreme Court of Victoria.  Monique has volunteered as a lawyer with the Homeless Person’s Legal Clinic, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Mental Health Legal Centre and Prahran Citizen’s Advice Bureau.  She has also co-authored a report on the methodology used by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to assess the age of minors in immigration detention, which was published by leading civil liberties organization, Liberty Victoria, in September 2015.  Monique currently works as a solicitor for the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency in Katherine where she travels to remote communities to provide civil law advice and representation to Aboriginal clients.  Monique advises clients on a diverse range of areas, including employment and discrimination matters, the applicability of statutory compensation schemes, complaints against the police and health care complaints.  She also represents clients in adult guardianship, child protection and alcohol mandatory treatment proceedings.  Outside of work, Monique is an avid supporter of the Geelong Football Club and enjoys traveling, reading and spending time with family and friends.

For her Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship, Monique hopes to study a Masters of Law (LLM) in America. She would like to build on her previous studies and practical legal experience by focusing her overseas LLM studies on international and human rights law.  Monique would like to learn from the American and international experience at a leading university to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of how the law can be used as a mechanism to help empower disadvantaged individuals and groups of people.

Shraddha Kashyap Postgraduate Students

Shraddha is currently a PhD candidate and a Provisionally Registered Psychologist completing a Master of Clinical Psychology, at the University of Western Australia. Shraddha’s doctoral study involves the translation of psychological research into clinical practice. Her work in the School of Psychology at the University of Western Australia has involved a collaboration with Perth Clinic; a private mental health facility. She found that continuously measuring individuals’ psychological distress during treatment, rather than once at the beginning and once at the end of treatment, can improve precision in predicting adverse health outcomes, such as risk of self-injury. For example, it is often thought that all individuals who report high initial distress would be at the highest risk of self-injury. However, she has published work finding that individuals who report an early improvement in psychological distress are at a lower risk of self-injury despite beginning with high initial distress. This novel approach of continuous monitoring has the potential for more individualized, nuanced and precise risk assessment techniques that extend beyond inpatient mental health facilities and could be used to enhance mental health outcomes more broadly. Shraddha grew up in Kenya, and had lived in Jordan for one year before migrating to Australia with her family in 2002. Prior to commencing her PhD, Shraddha won a scholarship to study in Lille, France, and has since travelled around Europe, South America, North America and Asia.

Shraddha has a keen interest in refugee mental health, and hopes to find meaningful ways of helping displaced peoples begin new lives despite suffering from previous trauma.  The Fulbright Scholarship will allow Shraddha to apply her doctoral research to an asylum seeker and refugee population.  She will investigate resilience among individuals undergoing treatment at the NYU/Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture.  Specifically, she will examine whether multiple measurements of psychological distress over time can help pinpoint groups of individuals who may improve more rapidly than others, and study factors associated with this resilience.  These factors would include a combination of individual and community characteristics, as well as factors related to their treatment.  Identifying these factors through quantitative and qualitative measurements would allow clinicians to isolate the most helpful aspects of treatment, and improve outcomes for more individuals.

Dr Jamie Maraj Postgraduate Students

Jamie is a dentist who received his Doctor of Dental Medicine degree from the University of Western Australia in 2020. Throughout his time in dental school, Jamie gained a unique insight into how dental care can relieve chronic pain, restore self-esteem and empower people to fully participate in their communities. During this time, he also witnessed how limited access to affordable dental care drives oral health inequality. This fostered a passion for public health and a desire to improve the way in which we deliver dental care in Australia.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Jamie plans to pursue a Master of Public Health, with a focus on health policy at Columbia University. He hopes to gain a greater understanding of the public policy challenges underpinning unequal access to dental care. He eventually aspires to affect large scale policy changes that produce more equitable oral health outcomes in Australia.

Tobin South Postgraduate Students

Tobin is a data scientist developing computational tools to understand complex systems using big data. Tobin has spent the last several years researching the flow of misinformation in social media news as part of a Master of Philosophy following his graduation as Valediction of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Adelaide. His techniques combine tools from machine learning and applied mathematics to robustly extract information about dynamics from large open data sources for use in real world decision making.

As a Fulbright Future Scholar, Tobin will be undertaking a PhD at MIT where he will develop the next generation of tools to analyse complex systems, applying these techniques to applications as diverse as information warfare, economic analysis and human mobility. Tobin will be championing an ongoing collaboration between the MIT Media Lab and the South Australian Government to add value to the state using local data.