Alumni Profiles

Howard Schweber Distinguished Chair

“The way people conceive of their government as representative speaks volumes about the way people conceive of themselves as democratic citizens and the working understandings of democracy that inform popular understandings of governmental legitimacy.”

Howard Schweber, a Professor with the Department of Political Science and Legal Studies at the University of Winconsin-Madison is the inaugural Fulbright Flinders University Distinguished Chair. The Australian Distinguished Chair in American Political Science was established in 2005, and is hosted in 2011-2015 by Flinders University.

Through his Fulbright, Professor Schweber will spend five months at Flinders University examining the ways in which foundational concepts of representative government have shaped the development of Australian constitutional and political culture.

Professor Schweber’s past research has focused on the conceptual underpinnings of American constitutionalism, and liberal democracy in general, and he has written books on the subject.

“There is a considerable body of work that compares different constitutional ideas across political cultures; my hope is to further that comparative understanding by drawing connections to differences in underlying conceptions of a basic democratic concept,” Professor Schweber said.

Professor Schweber said that Australia provides an exceptionally interesting case for comparative treatment because of its history of maintaining a constitutional system rooted in a combination of elements of British and American systems.

Professor Schweber is eager to take advantage of the archival resources, attitudinal information, and collaborative efforts that being in Australia will make possible. At the end of his project he plans to produce published work analysing the answers to these inquiries in comparative perspective.

Howard Schweber has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, a JD from the University of Washington, an MS in History from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in Government from Cornell University. His forthcoming book is his fourth (others are studies of American legal history and the First Amendment). He will be accompanied in Australia by his wife and daughter, while another son will remain in the United States to pursue graduate studies.

Professor Yan Li Senior Scholars

Driven by an intellectual curiosity for data and emergent information technologies, and a passion for designing and building things, Yan has oriented her career in a direction that integrates research, teaching and practice in the realm of information science. She aspires to conduct impactful scholarship to advance scientific knowledge and make the world a better place.

Yan’s expertise in machine learning and AI, digital inclusion, mobile health and design science research will see her lead a Fulbright project that aims to ensure the digital inclusion of an AI-enabled digital cognitive assessment tool for the early detection of dementia.

Professor Lois R Lupica Senior Scholars

Professor Lois R. Lupica’s recent research has focused on access to justice, consumer credit, and bankruptcy law. She is an affiliated faculty member of the Harvard Law School Access to Justice Lab and Co-Principal Investigator of the Financial Distress Research Study. Professor Lupica is also the Principal Investigator of the Apps for Justice Project, where she has developed an array of technology-based legal self-help tools.  She is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and her work has appeared in leading law reviews. Professor Lupica will use her Fulbright award to critically examine the Australian legal services’ structure, priorities, and methods of service delivery for underserved populations. She will study the effectiveness of recently implemented programmatic innovations designed to address the access to civil justice crisis in Australia with the future goal of working with U.S. institutions to scale and replicate best practices.

Dr Paul Mcgreevy Senior Scholars

Paul McGreevy is a veterinarian and ethologist. With expertise in learning theory, animal training, animal welfare science, veterinary behavioural medicine and anthrozoology, he is a co-founder and honorary fellow of the International Society for Equitation Science, an academic group that promotes evidence-based equestrian practice to advance horse welfare and rider safety. Paul and his team recently launched Equine Behavior Assessment and Research Questionnaire (E-BARQ), an ongoing global database of domestic horse behaviour, designed to reveal how horses’ training and management interact with their behaviour. Beyond immediate and direct research outcomes, E-BARQ promises profound benefits to horse owners, riders and trainers.

Paul will use his time at Colorado State University to ensure that US horses and their humans obtain maximal benefit from the EBARQ initiative.

Dr Hojun Song Senior Scholars

Hojun is an Associate Professor in the Department of Entomology at Texas A&M University. His research program focuses on understanding the global biodiversity of the insect order Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids). He is also a leading expert in the study of swarming locusts, and his current research aims to understand the molecular basis of swarming in the Central American locust using various genomic tools. He has published over 50 scientific papers and several book chapters, and he received the prestigious NSF CAREER award in 2013.  

As a Fulbright Scholar, Hojun plans to study Australian grasshoppers at the CSIRO Australian National Insect Collection. Australia has a diverse grasshopper fauna, but no one has studied them for more than 20 years. His goal is to develop a long-term research program that will document the biodiversity of Australian grasshoppers and understand the evolutionary processes giving rise to the current diversity. 

Sam Patrick Crosby Professional Scholars

Sam is the Executive Director of the St Vincent de Paul Society where he oversees welfare distribution to tens of thousands of families and individuals each year, including during times of disaster recovery. Previously, Sam was the CEO of McKell Institute, a progressive Australian think tank; and has worked as an advisor to Australian Government ministers, a Treasurer and briefly for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. In 2016 he published The Trust Deficit (Melbourne University Press), a book about how to restore trust in Australian politics.

Sam will use his Fulbright Scholarship to examine recidivism reduction programs in prisons across the United States.

Dr Paul Harpur Professional Scholars

Dr Harpur is currently a senior lecturer with the TC Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland.  He became blind following a train accident at the age of 14 and found himself disabled by society.  The question of why barriers to ability exist and how they can be removed has evolved into an impressive academic and advocacy career for Paul.

Harpur will use his Fulbright Future Scholarship to spend 3 months between the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and Harvard University to collect data and build relationships between Australian and US advocates and researchers involved with the development and promotion of design that is accessible to everyone in society, whether they be able or disabled.  Harpur’s research project aims to combat ableism’s influence on human life, so that in the future different ability is not associated with disablement, but instead is accepted as a part of human diversity.

Jake Clark Postgraduate Students

Jake hunts down and characterises newly found worlds beyond our solar system and is a current PhD candidate at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ). After receiving a first-class honours in Physics at the University of Adelaide and obtaining a Master of Science Communication Outreach at the Australian National University, his main research focus is determining the chemical and geological makeup of large rocky and small gassy worlds known as super-Earths. 

Jake’s Fulbright Future Scholarship will take him to the Southwest Research Institute’s headquarters in San Antonio Texas, where he will craft and confirm a new planet discovery technique dedicated to finding super-Earths. These planets will likely be confirmed with both NASA’s new planet finding mission TESS and USQ’s planet hunting observatory, MINERVA-Australis. 

Dr. Oliver Cronin Postgraduate Students

Oliver graduated from James Cook University in 2012 with a Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery (Honours). He completed Basic Physician Training at St Vincent’s Hospital before entering the Gastroenterology Advanced Training programme in 2018. He became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 2021. Oliver is currently completing additional subspecialty training in Therapeutic Interventional Endoscopy at Westmead Hospital under the mentorship of Professor Michael Bourke. Oliver has been awarded a postgraduate National Health and Medical Research Council scholarship to undertake a PhD on The Science of Cold Snare Polypectomy through the University of Sydney. He has published extensively, and his manuscripts have been featured in the world’s leading Gastroenterology journals. His other research interests relate to improving the safety, quality and efficacy of endoscopy as well as advanced resection techniques for the treatment of pre-malignant and early gastrointestinal cancers.

With the support of a Fulbright Future Scholarship, Oliver will to continue this research at NYU Langone Health, under the mentorship of Professor Greg Haber.

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.

Rebekah Mohn Postgraduate Students

Rebekah is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Minnesota in Saint Paul studying chromosome evolution in a group of insect-eating plants commonly known as sundews (the
genus Drosera).

During Rebekah’s Fulbright Future Scholarship, she will be working with Dr Adam Cross at Curtin University to collect genetic and chromosome count data from 150 species of Drosera throughout Australia. All organisms package DNA into chromosomes to ensure the accurate inheritance of DNA during cell division. Unsuccessful inheritance of chromosomes due to breakage or unequal separation can result in diseases such as cancer.However, in some plants and animals including in species of Drosera, a modification of a structure in cell division enables the successful inheritance even after chromosome breakage. Rebekah will be using the data she collects to further our understanding of chromosome breakage and Drosera in specific by exploring the impact chromosome variation has on species diversification.

Srimayi Tenali Postgraduate Students

Srimayi earned her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2020, where she minored in Energy Studies. Srimayi’s work and interests have centered around sustainable development and the clean energy transition. Her experiences range from directing the annual MIT Energy Conference to developing curriculum for refugee education to sustainability advocacy work in her hometown. Most recently, she worked as a Solar Design Engineer at Nexamp, where she designed large-scale solar arrays and built energy models for grid-connected systems.

Through her Fulbright Anne Wexler Scholarship, Srimayi is pursuing the interdisciplinary Master of Sustainability degree at the University of Sydney. Srimayi is keen to combine her engineering experience with a broader approach to sustainability and hopes that the Fulbright experience will equip her to work on multinational transformations towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals.