2020 Alumni

Professor Lee Ann Banaszak Distinguished Chair

Lee Ann is currently Head of the Department of Political Science at The Pennsylvania State University, and has written extensively on civic engagement, public opinion, protest, and government policy related to women.  She also served on the Pennsylvania Commission for Redistricting Reform and is passionate about voting rights in democratic systems.    

During her Fulbright Scholarship at the Australian National University, Lee Ann will compare the adoption and implementation of policies impacting women in the states in Australia and the U.S. and will compare these to other federal countries.  Specifically, she will focus on the role that cultural norms and social practices play in shaping policies that vary by women’s race, ethnicity, and social class.   

Professor Pablo Garcia Distinguished Chair

Pablo is currently Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he teaches art and design in the Department of Contemporary Practices. His research practice produces artworks, designs, and scholarship inspired by technology’s historical connections to creative practice.  

In 2013, Pablo launched the NeoLucida, a modern reinterpretation of the camera lucida. Assuming interest in a 19th century obsolete drawing aid would be low; he was caught by surprise when his crowdfunding campaign raised nearly US$500,000 from more than 11,000 worldwide backers. The ensuing lessons in rapidly growing his practice motivated interest in teaching contemporary arts entrepreneurship.  

As a Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Pablo will explore new strategies and methods for building and sustaining an art practice. Internet tools and global marketplaces are now accessible by artists and designers of all levels; Pablo’s research will encourage artists around the world achieve creative independence. 

Professor Steven Gorelick Distinguished Chair

Steven is the Cyrus F. Tolman Professor in the Department of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. At Stanford since 1988, he runs the Hydro Program and directs the Global Freshwater Initiative, which employs an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing water-supply vulnerability. Steven will apply his experience in analysis of freshwater resources in various countries around the world to better understand water security issues and regional coupled human-natural-engineered freshwater systems in Australia. 

Steven will use his term as a Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Science, Technology and Innovation at CSIRO to study water security and integrated water resources management in underdeveloped regions of northern Australia. 

Professor Ravi Jain Distinguished Chair

Ravi is a Professor at the University of New Mexico, whose formal affiliations span the Departments of Electrical Engineering, Physics, Nanoscience and Microsystems Engineering, and the Center for High Technology Materials. Besides teaching laser physics, fiber optics, optoelectronics, semiconductor and glass physics, he performs research on the development of next generation glass devices for fiber lasers and fiber-optic sensors, with an added emphasis on extending such device capabilities to the mid-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. 

Ravi plans to perform research on embedding custom nanocrystallites in “soft glasses” for new fiber laser and optical sensor applications at the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing. The lasers and optical sensors will be useful for DST with applications ranging from “blinding” incoming missiles to sensing extremely small quantities of undesirable toxic gases. Such nanocrystal-embedded glass lasers and optoelectronic sensors are expected to have significant impact on numerous health monitoring, pollution monitoring, and industrial process monitoring applications. 

Professor Jonathan Mendilow Distinguished Chair

Jonathan is a professor at Rider University (Lawrenceville, New Jersey) and chair of the International Political Science Association’s Research Council for the study of political finance and political corruption. He had published extensively in the two fields as well as in political theory. His current interest is to examine their interrelationships, with special attention to the contribution of political finance to the decline of trust in government and political polarization in many liberal democracies.  

As a Fulbright Scholar, Jonathan seeks to examine these tendencies in Australia, and compare them to those that characterize the vastly different U.S. political system.  He hopes to arrive at some theoretical conclusions that would carry policy implications.   

LaShanda Taylor Adams Senior Scholars

LaShanda is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and a Professor of Law at the University of the District of Columbia, David A. Clarke School of Law. She joined the law faculty after ten years working on behalf of children and families at leading child welfare organizations.

As a Fulbright Scholar, she will conduct a comparative study of South Australian and American efforts to reorient child protection systems toward early intervention and family support services. Specifically, LaShanda will assess how the shift will affect children and families with chronic and repeated involvement in the child welfare system as well as Aboriginal children and families. Her research will inform the design of new prevention and early intervention services to these populations in South Australia and to similar populations in the United States. 

Professor Nigel Andrew Senior Scholars

Nigel is a Professor of Entomology at UNE, and editor-in-chief of Austral Ecology: A Journal of Ecology in the Southern Hemisphere. His research has a current focus on identifying if behavioural, ecological and physiological traits of insect species are predictable and repeatable, and whether these traits can then be scaled up to predict changes within and between ecological communities: this is fundamental to understanding biotic adaptations to a rapidly changing climate. Nigel has a reputation for carrying out quality research and integrating a range of disciplines (particularly ecology, behaviour and physiology) into his publications, and this attracts both national and international collaborations. 

As a Fulbright Scholar, Nigel will assess how dung beetles respond to thermal pressures at different life stages. The research outlined will actively engage key research directives across Australia and North America, bringing high-quality researchers together and develop mentoring and cultural collaborations between the lab members. 

Professor James Arvanitakis Senior Scholars

James is the Pro Vice Chancellor (Research and Graduate Studies) at Western Sydney University where he was the founding Head of The Academy, receiving the 2016 Australian Financial Review higher education excellence award. He is also a lecturer in Humanities and a member of the University’s Institute for Culture and Society. James is internationally recognised for his innovative teaching style and was the recipient of the Prime Minister’s University Teacher of the Year Award (2012) and named an Eminent Researcher by the Australia India Education Council (2015). In 2017 he was appointed a Research Fellow of the Australian India Institute. James’ Fulbright Scholarship will see him take up the position of Milward L. Simpson Visiting Professor at the University of Wyoming. While in Wyoming, he will teach classes in international relations focused on ‘the politics of outer space’, ‘citizenship’ and ‘data ethics’. 

Dr Leon Barmuta Senior Scholars

Leon is an ecologist specialising in freshwaters who has taught and researched at the University of Tasmania since 1991. He has worked extensively with water managers, foresters and biodiversity advisors, chiefly in Australia.  

A frequent problem that he has encountered with applying ecological research is the mismatch between the scale at which measurements are made and the scale at which actions need to be taken. Interventions at too small or too large a scale may be ineffective at best. Leon will use his Fulbright Scholarship to work with pioneers in scaling research at Kansas State University.  He hopes to help solve some technical issues involving nutrient transformations in streams as a prelude to developing a longer-term collaboration to guide environmental scientists to work across scales more effectively. 

Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet Senior Scholars

Brydie is currently Director of the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre at Griffith University. She is one of the world’s leading community music scholars whose research has advanced our understanding of the cultural, social, economic and educational value of music in First Nations’ Communities, prisons, war-affected cities, educational and industry contexts. Her work has connected music with fields as diverse as regional development, criminology, health equity and human rights. In 2014 she was awarded the Australian University Teacher of the Year, and in 2018 she was awarded an Art for Good Fellowship (Singapore International Foundation). Brydie will use her Fulbright Scholarship to undertake groundbreaking research with musicians and organizations in New York who are harnessing the power of music to tackle complex social inequalities. Working collaboratively with world-leading experts at New York University she will address the pressing need for systematic research into how music can play a key role in creating positive social change. 

Professor Andrew Cruse Senior Scholars

Andrew is an Associate Professor at Ohio State’s Knowlton School and a registered architect. His Fulbright project, Promoting Indoor Climate Change, looks at how deliberate changes to the interior climate of buildings can reduce carbon emissions, improve occupant comfort, and enrich architectural design. Australian researchers have spearheaded research on innovative thermal comfort models. Through interviews and case studies, Andrew will draw on this work to determine how the spatial intelligence embedded in buildings contributes to improved comfort and energy efficiency in ways that are not currently captured by building performance metrics.  

Dr George Danko Senior Scholars

George, an engineer and mathematician by training, is an innovator in machine and process control, automation, robotics and computational models for increasing safety and health while saving energy and cost in mining operations. He has been working with leading industrial and academic partners in Australia on information technology applications for mining, funded in the U.S. by the Alpha Foundation for Safety and Health.  

As a Fulbright Scholar in Future of Mines topics in Australia, he will visit and work with academic and industrial participants for cooperative development and tryouts of new safety enhancement systems for preventive intervention of accidents using big data, modeling, control and robotics.   

Professor Martina Doblin Senior Scholars

Martina is a professor in the Climate Change Cluster at the University of Technology Sydney. For her Fulbright Scholarship, Martina will work with Dr Naomi Levine (University of Southern California) and Dr Andrew Barton (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) to characterise the environmental experience of marine plankton using high-resolution ocean models. She will also undertake lab experiments to determine the biological responses of phytoplankton to environmental variability. Findings will lead to the development of next-generation models to predict the productivity of phytoplankton in the future ocean. 

Martina’s project will provide more certainty about adaptation options for fisheries and aquaculture, advance knowledge needed to design more secure food production systems (e.g., outdoor algal ponds), and help stimulate the rapidly growing bioeconomy. 

Dr Martin Ebert Senior Scholars

Martin is a certified clinical medical physicist undertaking research in Radiation Oncology at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and the University of Western Australia. He is working with Australian national oncology researchers and computer scientists, using medical imaging to gain insights into why cancer progresses, and why it becomes resistant to treatment. By applying advanced analytics methods to high quality clinical trial datasets, he is hoping to identify features and signatures that betray the underlying mechanisms of acquired resistance. For his Fulbright Future Scholarship, Martin will be joining the team of Professor Robert Jeraj in the Medical Physics group at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, to learn techniques associated with image processing and machine learning specific to molecular imaging in oncology, and to work on developing an international network of data sources and analytics expertise to try and gain some insights into what can halt cancer progression. 

Nicholas Giordano Senior Scholars

Nicholas completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Hillman Scholar in Nursing Innovation and NIH-funded Predoctoral Fellow. Nicholas is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Defense and Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management in Rockville, Maryland.

Throughout his Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship, he will work with Professor Tracey Bucknall, PhD, RN, FAAN at Deakin University and Alfred Health to examine the integration and utilization of patient-reported outcomes into clinical practice settings. This work aims to guide patients and their providers in making evidenced-based care decisions that optimize pain management and post-surgical recovery. 

Professor John Heil Senior Scholars

John specialises in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. His Fulbright project addresses the age-old question: how are appearances related to reality? The everyday world, including the world of scientists working with instruments in their laboratories, seems strikingly different from the world revealed by physics. A tomato is red but is made up of colourless particles.  A table is solid, but physics tells us that the table is mostly empty space. Are the tomato, its colour, and the table illusions, in us, not ‘out there’? Or are they ‘emergent’ somethings over and above the particles and fields? 

Although versions of both these familiar responses have had legions of adherents, John finds a third, more compelling response implicit in the best Australian metaphysics: physics tells us what the appearances are appearances of. This seems straightforward, even obvious, but the details are surprisingly elusive. John will be articulating these details in consultation with colleagues at Monash and elsewhere in Australia. 

Associate Professor Karen Hughes Senior Scholars

Karen holds a Associate Professorship in Indigenous Studies and History at Swinburne University. Her research is distinguished by long-term collaborations with Indigenous communities in Australia and the U.S. For her Fulbright Scholarship Karen will investigate the previously hidden history of Indigenous Australian women who married American servicemen during the Second World War and migrated to the U.S under the War Brides Act (US) 1945. Foregrounding Australian Indigenous war brides’ perspectives for the first time and bringing together previously distinct historical narratives located within significant political, social and cultural contexts.  The project will shift understanding of alternative channels of bilateral relations created during the war by people of colour and add new dimensions to Second World War history. Collaborating with scholars of Native American history, military history and African American history, Karen’s project will foster exploration of the connective histories of Indigenous Australian, Native American, African American, and other minorities in unexpected ways in transnational context, casting new light on Australian-American alliance. Outcomes include a national public exhibition and a book. 

Amanda Jones Senior Scholars

Amanda is a Director of Snowdome Foundation Limited, a for-purpose organisation focused on supporting translational research and clinical trials to accelerate next generation treatments for blood cancer patients.  Amanda is passionate about ensuring that new therapies such as CAR-T cell therapy and other immunotherapies are accessible to Australian blood cancer patients. 

 As a Fulbright Future Scholar, Amanda will spend time at the Leukaemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) in New York to strengthen the collaboration between Snowdome and LLS.  She will also learn from and leverage the experiences of the LLS in areas such as venture philanthropy, impact investment, fundraising and policy making.  Learnings will inform Snowdome strategies for fundraising.     

Amanda also plans to spend time at the University of Pennsylvania (a world leader in the development of CAR-T cell technology and other cellular therapies) and an affiliated medical centre.  It is hoped that this on the ground learning will assist Snowdome to support the delivery of CAR-T and other cellular therapies to blood cancer patients in Australia.   

James King Senior Scholars

James has taught classes on various aspects of American government and politics for nearly four decades. Through the Fulbright program he will study the Australian electoral system and consider its applicability to American elections.  The basic question is whether the preferential voting or instant-runoff voting system used in South Australia could make American politics more democratic and reduce public discontent with the electoral process.  Preferential voting has gained some attention in the United States but has yet to be widely adopted.  Gaining a thorough understanding of the Australian system will facilitate an assessment of preferential voting and its potential for improving American elections by encouraging development of a third political party or producing more moderate nominees of the two existing parties. 

Anastassija Konash Senior Scholars

Anastassija (Stacey) is a scientist and entrepreneurial problem-solver with experience in academic and industrial research, working as senior manager at the Factory of the Future at Swinburne University of Technology. She works to improve productivity through the use of Industry 4.0 technologies such as collaborative robots, Big Data and 3D printing. In addition, the large part of her job is establishing the new carbon fibre composites manufacturing facility-Industry 4.0 Testlab. Anastassija is passionate about the environment and believes that science and technology can provide solutions for our sustainable development.

Stacey will use her Fulbright Scholarship to investigate the application of Industry 4.0 tools to enable circular economy in U.S., to learn about the state-of-the-art industrial ecology and, through collaboration, to strengthen the sustainability of manufacturing sectors in both- Australia and the U.S.

Professor Challa Vijaya Kumar Senior Scholars

Challa is Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the flagship university of the state of Connecticut. He has been teaching and conducting research at the university on Biological Materials and Physical Chemistry for over three decades.  

As a Fulbright Scholar, Challa will be working on developing protein hydrogels for the construction of enzyme-based biobatteries. His current work on enzyme stabilization will be combined with the expertise of the host institution to construct and test 4D-printed biobatteries, first of their kind in the world. He will use the jointly developed knowledge for further development and future commercialization. 

Professor Zdenka Kuncic Senior Scholars

Zdenka is Professor of Physics at the University of Sydney, where she leads a unique research program using physics and physics-based techniques to confront challenging problems that can only be solved through interdisciplinary approaches. Her research has contributed to the development of new nanotechnologies for detecting, diagnosing and treating cancer and other diseases. During her Fulbright tenure, Zdenka will work with collaborators at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA to demonstrate the potential for cognitive learning in a nanotechnology device that mimics the human brain’s neural network. This unique neuromorphic hardware device has the potential to process information from dynamic data in an adaptive way, beyond current capabilities of machine learning software, including AI.

Dr Kristine M. Larson Senior Scholars

Kristine is an emeritus professor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado. Her research is centered on using GPS signals to study a variety of Earth processes such as ground deformation during earthquakes, plate tectonic motions, snow accumulation, and ocean tides. She will spend her Fulbright Scholarship at the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Tasmania. She is particularly interested in working with Australian scientists on making new GPS measurements in Antarctica. 

Kristine’s goal during this visit to Australia is to help establish a center of excellence for using GPS signals for environmental applications. 

Dr John M. Marston Senior Scholars

John is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology at Boston University, where he directs the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory. He studies the long-term sustainability of agriculture and land use, with a focus on ancient societies of the Mediterranean and western and central Asia. 

As a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Queensland, John will work closely with colleagues at the university on the analysis of plant remains from several archaeological sites in Turkey in order to reconstruct agricultural practices over a period of a thousand years. By investigating how farmers in this semiarid region adapted to simultaneous changes in climate and the rise and fall of empires, they will create a broader understanding of how choices about agriculture have contributed to the persistence and collapse of states, with implications for countries in climatically similar regions in the present day. 

Dr Ateev Mehrotra Senior Scholars

Ateev is a physician and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Health Care Policy. His research focuses on the growing use of telemedicine in the United States and its impact on improving the care patients receive and increasing access to rural communities.  

During his Fulbright Scholarship he will partner with hosts at the Centre for Online Health to compare how telemedicine is being used in the United States and Australia. In both countries, the use of this promising technology is growing rapidly, but which conditions is telemedicine being used to treat? Is it reaching the most underserved populations? Findings will inform clinical practice, policy discussions, and reimbursement policies in both countries. 

Cristin Millett Senior Scholars

Straddling traditional disciplinary boundaries, Cristin’s investigations of medicine are integral to her artistic process. Her sculptural objects and installations prompt a contemporary cultural critique of societal issues surrounding reproduction and gender identity. Cristin is a Professor of Art in the School of Visual Arts and an Embedded Faculty Researcher in the Arts + Design Research Incubator at Penn State.  

As a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Western Australia, Cristin will be an artist–in–residence at SymbioticA, an artistic laboratory dedicated to research and hands-on engagement with the life sciences. At SymbioticA, she will study the science of ectogenesis, the augmentation or replacement of the fecund uterus by a machine. The outcome of her research will be the creation of a sculptural artwork titled Ex-Utero. Ex-Utero will prompt questions and conversations about the socio-cultural impact of ectogenesis, a science with far-reaching implications.

Dr Tristan Moss Senior Scholars

Tristan is a lecturer in history in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Canberra. His research focus is on defence history in the Cold War and he has worked for the Australian Government on the Official Histories of Australian Operations in Afghanistan. He has published a book with Cambridge University Press and is the Deputy Regional Coordinator of the Society for Military History. 

For his Fulbright Scholarship, Tristan will investigate the development of the relationship between Australia and America in space exploration from the dawn of the space age to today. Tristan will be based in Washington DC, at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, where he will conduct research at the National Archives, at the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, and meet with space policy makers and scholars. With Australia taking a renewed interest in space, not least through the recent formation of an Australian Space Agency, an examination of the over fifty-year relationship between the U.S. and Australia in space exploration and observation, will assist in formulating new policy and strengthen the cooperation between the two nations in space. 

Dr Robert Perrons Senior Scholars

Rob is an associate professor at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, specialising in innovation and new technologies within the energy and resource sector. He also serves as a member of the United Nations Resources and Energy Expert Group and is a technical adviser to several resource sector technology start-up companies around the world. The world’s transition to green energy will require significant amounts of so-called “technology minerals”—including metals like lithium and cobalt, which are commonly found in rechargeable batteries, or the tellurium that is used to make solar cells—but the mining community is not currently on track to satisfy anywhere near the anticipated demand for many of these feedstock materials. As a Fulbright Scholar, Rob will develop an integrative framework for the policy- and business-related aspects of applying blockchain technology to make supply networks for technology minerals “smart,” thereby helping to provide these inputs for green energy technologies. 

Associate Professor Kristen Radford Senior Scholars

Kristen is a Mater Foundation Principal Research Fellow and Leader of the Cancer Immunotherapies Group at Mater Research and the Translational Research Institute in Brisbane. Her research is focused on the development of new treatments known as immunotherapies that harness the body’s own immune system to recognize and fight cancer. Her team has developed a new vaccine that has potential to treat a variety of human cancers. As a Fulbright Scholar, Kristen will spend time in the laboratory of Professor Nina Bhardwaj, an internationally recognized pioneer and leader in the field of cancer vaccines. She will learn state-of-the art procedures for the evaluation of cancer vaccines and develop new partnerships to facilitate translation of this research for clinical trials to benefit cancer patients. 

Professor John A. Rees Senior Scholars

John is an international relations scholar with an interest in understanding how countries and communities can benefit from a greater awareness of religious and cultural tradition. He is Co-Chair of the International Development & Religion Unit of the American Academy of Religion and has delivered keynote presentations and lectures at several U.S. universities. John applies his research to international ethics and the impact that enhanced knowledge about religions and cultures can have on social, economic and political cohesion. The University of Wyoming is dedicated to serving the state of Wyoming and producing graduates who go on to be global leaders. John’s work as a Fulbright Scholar will seek to further these aims by teaching specialised classes in ‘religion and world politics’ and ‘nationalism in global perspective’, and continuing research collaborations with U.S. scholars in the study of religious literacy in international studies. 

Ryan Reuter Senior Scholars

Ryan is currently as Associate Professor of Range Beef Cattle Nutrition in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences at Oklahoma State University in the U.S. He teaches courses in cattle nutrition and grazing management and has a keen research interest in developing precision management technologies to improve sustainability of grazing systems.  

Ryan will use his Fulbright Scholarship to work with colleagues in Australia to develop a new sensor algorithm that he hopes can measure the grazed forage intake of individual cows. Armed with this technology, researchers and grazing managers could make more data-driven decisions to improve productivity and sustainability of their grazing enterprises. This four month effort will build lasting linkages with similarly interested researchers in Australia and the U.S. 

Professor Charles Rice Senior Scholars

Charles is Professor of Architecture and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building at the University of Technology Sydney. An architectural historian, he researches the ways in which domestic and urban interiors shaped architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Based at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, Charles will use his scholarship to research the archive of American architect Gunnar Birkerts, in particular the designs for underground buildings and cities he made in the 1970s and 1980s. By focusing on buildings designed as sequences of interiors rather than iconic objects, the research will illuminate the alternative ways in which architecture creates significant spaces in cities. 

Professor Bruce Scates Senior Scholars

Bruce is a Professor of History in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University.  His work explores the politics and practice of commemoration and asks what we forget when we remember war.  He will use his Fulbright 70th Anniversary Scholar Award to consider ways the Centenary of the First World War was marked across America.  The First World War has long been considered the nation’s ‘forgotten war’, overshadowed by the Second and displaced by competing narratives centered on the Civil War and Vietnam.  How did the U.S. Centennial Commission set about recovering the ‘lost’ memory of 1914-1918, what form did the commemorative project take in galleries, archives, libraries and museums and, most importantly, how did the American public respond to the call to remember? Bruce will compare America’s centenary with Anzac Commemoration in Australia where WWI is seen by many as signaling ‘the birth of the nation’. 

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. 

Professor Richard G. Sonnenfeld Senior Scholars

Richard is an experimental physicist who has built and applied novel scientific instruments to particle physics, magnetic disk drives, and lightning research since 1981.

In Australia, Richard intends to combine a new radio imaging technique with high speed video and hopes to capture lightning striking mine shafts or other tall structures. Kalgoorlie, WA is a perfect location for this work because of the excellent visibility, intense summer storms, and proximity of WASM.  If Sonnenfeld can capture the final meters of a lightning channel, microseconds before it strikes, the understanding can improve structure protection in the energy industry as well as illuminate the fascinating physics of how nature makes 40-kilometer-long sparks.  Working with the Museum of the Goldfields and Curtin University, he is preparing a talk, Lightning like you have never seen it before, to share field results and nurture lay interest and support for atmospheric science. 

Dr Myles Steiner Senior Scholars

Myles is a Senior Scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in Golden, Colorado. Myles leads research projects on high efficiency III-V solar cells for electricity generation, energy storage and hydrogen production applications. A key focus of his work has been on exploiting radiative processes in solar cells, with the goal of improving efficiencies while lowering barriers to commercialization of photovoltaic technologies.  

Myles will spend his time as a Fulbright Scholar in the laboratory of Prof. Nicholas Ekins-Daukes at the University of New South Wales, conducting experiments on two-dimensional quantum nanostructures and understanding how they can be optimally incorporated into solar cells to further increase the power conversion efficiency for a range of terrestrial applications. 

Sue VandeWoude Senior Scholars

Sue is currently Associate Dean for Research and Professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University (CSU).  In addition to promoting and facilitating research of veterinarians and other scientists at CSU, she investigates feline viral ecology and pathogenesis, in order to advance understanding of diseases of domestic and nondomestic cats, and to more generally model pathogenesis and ecology of other viral infections.    

During her Fulbright Scholarship, Sue will study advanced statistical and modeling techniques to identify determinants of virulence during viral co-infections while in the laboratory of Dr. Scott Carver. This immersive experience will allow her to conduct future studies analyzing complex datasets inherent in modern virology research both in Australia and the U.S. She will also work to develop graduate and veterinary exchange programs between her home institution and the University of Tasmania. 

Dr Byron L. Zamboanga Senior Scholars

Byron is a Professor in the Psychology Department at Smith College.

As a Fulbright Scholar, he will spend four months at the University of Canberra studying university students’ motivations to pre-drink and play drinking games. He will also explore the psychological and social factors that can influence these risky drinking behaviors in an Australian university context. Additionally, he will examine why university students use or do not use protective strategies (e.g., alternating between alcoholic/nonalcoholic beverages) to reduce their risk for drinking harms. The results from this project will inform the development of a pilot alcohol intervention program designed to address pre-drinking and drinking games participation and promote protective strategies among Australian university students. 

Dermot O’Gorman Professional Scholars

Dermot is passionate about people and the planet – as a global leader in sustainable development, he has spent the past 18 years as CEO of WWF in the Pacific, then WWF China and now WWF Australia. Dermot has driven innovation thinking within WWF, especially on digital technologies, overseeing the establishment of WWF Panda Labs and WWF’s first global joint venture in OpenSC, of which he is Chair of the Board.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Dermot will work with Stanford University’s Digital Civil Society Lab on rethinking the future of Non-Government Organisations. The research will look at the blurring of lines between profit and not for profit and how digital disruption is reshaping the notion of what civil society is and how it engages with stakeholders. He will explore the re-imagining of environmental NGOs globally, strengthen Australia/U.S. civil society networks and contribute to peer to peer learning with Philanthropy and NGO leaders.

Louise Allen Postdoctoral Scholars

Louise is a final year PhD candidate at Monash University. After working as a clinical dietitian for a number of years in both Australia and England, she pursued a PhD exploring the impacts of continuing professional development in the health professions. Continuing professional development is the backbone of lifelong learning for health professionals and aims to ultimately ensure optimal patient care and safety. However, in the current climate where doctors are increasingly time poor continuing professional development often becomes a checkbox activity. As a Fulbright Scholar, Louise will explore the value of continuing professional development that medical professionals are required to do. This is important as without doing this there is potential for continuing professional development funding to be allocated to programs that are not meeting medical professionals needs, that are not enhancing their personal and professional development, and that ultimately are not improving healthcare of patients. 

Dr James Bahoh Postdoctoral Scholars

James’ research addresses the philosophical foundations of ontology and metaphysics, together with the impact different versions of these foundations have on how we understand the composition and transformation of social and political formations. He approaches this especially through the history of German and French philosophy. 

As a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar, James will work in conjunction with Deakin University’s Philosophy and the History of Ideas (PHI) Research Team. He will be doing research for a book on the ontology of transformational or irregular ‘events’ and their relation to the foundations of cognitive, propositional, and conceptual representation. Such events are watershed moments that rewrite the rules governing a social, political, artistic, psychological, historical, or conceptual order. Drawing on recent German and French philosophy, James’ Fulbright research will explore ways the structures of these kinds of events challenge the primacy of the traditional logic of identity at the root of our theories of representation and how this can help us to better understand and creatively respond to structural social and political inequity. 

Paul Branson Postdoctoral Scholars

Paul is a jointly appointed UWA/CSIRO Research Fellow at UWA’s Wave Energy Research Centre (WERC). Paul’s career spans both the engineering and research sectors with a focus on understanding the physical ocean conditions that impact the natural environment and built infrastructure. 

Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy systems requires collaboration across global multidisciplinary teams. During his Fulbright Scholarship, Paul will collaborate with PMEC researchers to improve methods to assess a sites ocean conditions including the potential extremes. For wave energy converters, devices must interact with ocean waves to harvest energy during typical conditions but also survive extreme conditions during storms. Paul will evaluate data-driven, machine-learning techniques to improve site characterization from data and models. Improved site characterization will allow marine energy device manufactures to establish site specific designs thereby avoiding costly over-engineering or risking damage during extreme conditions. 

Dr Angela Cumberland Postdoctoral Scholars

Angela is a postdoctoral researcher in the program for Neurodevelopment in Health and Disease at RMIT University, Melbourne. Her work focuses on investigating how the brain develops and how pregnancy complications such as preterm birth can change brain development, potentially leading to mental health disorders later in life. 

Angela will use her Fulbright Scholarship to learn about new low-cost imaging techniques under Associate Professor Tobias Grossmann (Virginia) and Associate Professor Lauren Emberson (Princeton) and discover how preterm birth changes the brain’s response to images and if these responses predict children at risk of developing emotional disorders. With this new technical experience, she intends to establish longitudinal studies in Australia designed to understand how emotional development occurs, with the aim of identifying children at risk of developing debilitating mental health disorders later in life. 

Calum Cunningham Postdoctoral Scholars

Calum is a wildlife ecologist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tasmania, where he researches how apex predators shape ecosystems. Calum is especially interested in whether large predators can reduce the abundance and effects of smaller introduced predators (like foxes and cats), and in doing so, protect small prey species. For his Fulbright Scholarship, Calum will spend 10 months working with Associate Professor Laura Prugh at the University of Washington. Calum will make use of a series of “natural experiments”, like the recovery of wolves in parts of the U.S. and the decline of Tasmanian devils in Australia, to assess how scavenging affects the wellbeing of ecosystems and humans. Ultimately, Calum aims to glean new understanding of the intricacies of how ecosystems function, and then apply this knowledge to help stem the tide of extinction. 

Dr Briohny Doyle Postdoctoral Scholars

Briohny Doyle is a writer and lecturer at Deakin University. Her debut climate fiction (cli-fi) novel, The Island Will Sink (2016), is the critically acclaimed first book published by Brow Books. Adult Fantasy (Scribe 2017), her first book of nonfiction, considers adulthood as a cultural construct and was shortlisted for the 2018 Melbourne Prize for Literature. Briohny’s criticism, short fiction and poetry has appeared in The Sunday Times, The Lifted Brow, The Age, Overland, Going Down Swinging, Meanjin, and The Monthly. In 2017, Briohny was an Endeavour fellow and visiting scholar at Yale University and the University of California Santa Cruz.

During her Fulbright postdoctoral program at The New School in New York City, Briohny will develop professional networks, work on a new novel considering extinction, human/non-human relationships, and climate change, and look for innovative approaches to teaching creative writing. 

Dr Malindu (Mal) Fernando Postdoctoral Scholars

Mal is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Queensland Research Centre for Peripheral Vascular Disease, James Cook University in Townsville and School of Clinical Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. Mal is also a podiatrist and is undertaking medical training. Approximately 50,000 Australians develop a diabetes-associated foot complication during their lifetime and up to 75% of these complications are preventable. For his Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship, Mal will collaborate with Professor Bijan Najafi at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and Professor David Armstrong at the South Western Academic Limb Salvage Alliance, Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California on the development of an evidence-based, multidisciplinary secondary prevention program for Australians at risk of developing diabetic foot complications. The aim of Mal’s research program is to integrate equitable and cost-effective technology-based strategies to overcome the challenges of accessibility, early detection and monitoring of foot complications in regional Australia.

Dr Christopher Goatley Postdoctoral Scholars

Chris is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Environmental and Rural Science at the University of New England. His research aims to improve our understanding of the functions of coral reef fishes and how they help maintain healthy coral reef ecosystems. Chris’ recent work focuses on tiny but incredibly abundant coral reef fishes called cryptobenthic fishes. These tiny fish may form the foundations of many coral reef food webs, but until recently they have been largely overlooked by researchers. 

Chris will use his Fulbright Scholarship to collaborate with experts in taxonomy and functional ecology of fishes. The aim of the scholarship is to build a greater understanding of the biodiversity of cryptobenthic fishes, and their roles in maintaining healthy and productive coral reefs in Australia and elsewhere. 

Barbara Kachigunda Postdoctoral Scholars

Barbara is a postgraduate researcher with the Harry Butler Institute whose focus is on statistical modelling of biological and environmental data. She has worked extensively as a statistical consultant in multi-disciplinary agricultural research in a variety of international settings.

Barbara will use her Fulbright Scholarship to design an appropriate surveillance and sampling strategy for wheat blast pathogen, Magnaporthe grisea. This project will provide information to demonstrate areas of pest freedom for market access and biosecurity decision making for M. grisea and facilitate its early detection. The spread of wheat blast threatens global food security, hence surveillance and monitoring are key to minimise the threat posed by this pathogen. Barbara will use her time at KSU to foster long term bilateral research partnerships between the U.S. and Australian agricultural biosecurity sectors. 

Dr Farzana Kastury Postdoctoral Scholars

Farzana is a postdoctoral researcher at the Environmental Science and Engineering strand of Future Industries Institute, University of South Australia.

During her Fulbright Future Scholarship program, Farzana will investigate how exposure to toxic elements in mining/smelting impacted communities can be reduced using in situ soil treatment strategies. Childhood exposure to toxic elements (e.g., lead, cadmium, arsenic) represents a social, economic and environmental burden on families, communities and society. A major concern with lead in the environment is the well-documented causal relationship between lead bioavailability (absorption into systemic circulation) and childhood cognitive development. Farzana’s research will refine methodologies for reducing co-exposure of toxic metal(loid)s using in vitro, in vivo and synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy speciation techniques. The results from this study may be used during remediation of lead contaminated sites in Australia and will foster ongoing collaboration between Australia and the U.S. 

Dr Jessica Lockery Postdoctoral Scholars

Jessica is a clinical informatician who is passionate about using data to improve community health and wellbeing. She completed her medical degree at the University of Adelaide and is currently undertaking a PhD at Monash University investigating ‘big data’, medicines and ageing.

Jessica will use her Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship to work with experts at the National Cancer Institute to investigate the relationship between aspirin, genetics and bowel cancer, a disease that affects many Australians and their families. Aspirin prevents bowel cancer in younger people, but recent research indicates that this effect may change with age. Using genetic data Jessica will study how certain genetic abnormalities alter the effect of aspirin on bowel cancer development – specifically in older people. This project is a key step towards identifying individuals who are likely to benefit from aspirin based on their genetic profile and provides a springboard for further research into ‘precision’ (genetic based) prevention. 

Dr Kelsey R. McDonough Postdoctoral Scholars

Kelsey completed her doctorate in Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Kansas State University and is currently a postdoctoral research scientist in the Professorship of Ecological Services at the University of Bayreuth, Germany.  

For her Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship, Kelsey will work with Dr Patricia Saco, Dr Jose Rodriguez, and Dr George Kuczera in the Centre for Water Security and Environmental Sustainability and Dr Anthony Kiem in the Centre for Water, Climate, and Land at the University of Newcastle. Her research will evaluate hydrological, climatological, and anthropogenic drivers of water availability and their impact on water allocation for important environmental assets of Australia. Future access to environmental water in Australia will become increasingly difficult with projected changes in climate, and thus the aim of this work is to increase the resiliency of Australia to climate change impacts while establishing a mutually beneficial partnership between researchers in Australia and the United States. 

Dr Nina Papalia Postdoctoral Scholars

Nina is a postdoctoral researcher with the Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science at Swinburne University of Technology. She is also a clinical and forensic psychologist with the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health, providing psychological assessment and treatment to offenders with complex mental health profiles. Nina completed her doctoral degree in 2017, which examined the long-term impacts of child sexual abuse, focussing on adverse mental health, criminal offending, and revictimization outcomes. She is interested in how exposure to childhood maltreatment and other early adversities can shape life course trajectories, and, for some, lead to participation in crime and violence.  

As a Fulbright Scholar, Nina will collaborate with world-leading experts at John Jay College of Criminal Justice to explore the psychosocial mechanisms that influence maltreated children to either commit or avoid engaging in violence themselves over the lifespan. Child maltreatment and violence are both unfortunately widespread, and the socio-economic burdens of these phenomena make prevention and effective intervention international priorities. By investigating the factors that place maltreated children at risk for aggression and violence, along with the factors that buffer some children against the negative impacts of early trauma and adversity, Nina hopes her Fulbright project will contribute to improved strategies to reduce violent behaviours, foster individual resilience and wellbeing, and promote safer communities.

Dr Eden Robertson Postdoctoral Scholars

Dr Eden Robertson is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Behavioural Sciences Unit at the Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Children’s Hospital. She is also the Research and Evaluation Manager at the Starlight Children’s Foundation. During her PhD, Eden developed the world’s first decision aid, ‘Delta’, to support families deciding whether to enroll their child with cancer in a clinical trial.

For her Fulbright Future Scholarship, Eden will first visit the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital to adapt ‘Delta’ for use by families who have children with cancer. Eden will then visit Teen Cancer America to expand ‘Delta’ to cater for young adults with cancer. Until cancer can be cured, clinical trials will remain the bedrock of cancer medicine. Eden is committed to supporting all patients and families to make an informed clinical trial enrolment decision that aligns best with what matters most to them. 

Dr Emma Rowe Postdoctoral Scholars

Emma is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Deakin University, and passionate about education as an instrument of social mobility and broader forms of societal and structural equity.

Emma will use her Fulbright Scholarship to study innovation in charter schools, based at Indiana University. The aim of the study is to understand innovation in practice and innovation for equity. Emma will engage with key stakeholders including school leaders and teachers to better understand how innovation is conceptualised, applied and measured in day-to-day practice. Emma serves in a leadership position at Deakin University, and is a recipient of the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association (Qualitative Research SIG), and Deakin University Excellence in Research Award (School of Education). She maintains a national and international profile in education. 

Dr Louisa Selvadurai Postdoctoral Scholars

Louisa is a researcher and clinical trainee in neuropsychology. She is passionate about using these dual roles to improve the lives of individuals living with brain disorders and has a particular interest in disorders of the cerebellum, a structure at the base of the brain.   

For her Fulbright Future Scholarship, Louisa will work within Professor Jeremy Schmahmann’s clinical-research group at Massachusetts General Hospital, investigating new clinical tools designed to detect cognitive and psychiatric difficulties in individuals with cerebellar disorders. Louisa will evaluate existing clinical data and observe current practice at Professor Schmahmann’s dedicated cerebellar disorders clinic. Based on these approaches, she aims to develop a practical clinical resource to inform wider uptake of these tools. Louisa looks forward to sharing this resource and her learnings in Australia, informing both clinical and research practice in order to better meet the needs of Australians living with these conditions.

Dr Arman Siahvashi Postdoctoral Scholars

Arman is a postdoctoral research fellow at The University of Western Australia. He has been named as one of Australia’s Most Innovative Engineers, ExxonMobil Student Scientist of the Year 2018 and received Australia’s National Measurement Institute Prize. He has been finalist for Western Australian Innovator of the Year awards in 2018 and 2019. These are in the recognition of his multi-disciplinary research which led to the invention of a high-precision apparatus that helps solve problems facing the liquefied hydrogen and natural gas industry: plant shutdowns due to the blockages caused by freeze-out of impurities. His research has also led to a collaboration with scientists at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory due to its relevance to some Lunar hydrogen projects and also dissolution geology of Saturn’s moon, Titan.

For his Fulbright Future Scholarship, Arman will establish new collaborations and work with the world’s best researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Colorado School of Mines to generate unique data that have not been measured previously with direct impact on the energy industry and space science in Australia and the U.S. His work helps the environment by reducing carbon emissions, improves plant operation safety and risk assessments, and drives economic growth and sustainable development.

Dr Emily J. Steel Postdoctoral Scholars

Emily is an occupational therapist, manager, and academic. Her research is focused on assistive technology products and services, to enable people with disability to lead successful and productive lives. Emily is also involved in the drafting of new international standards for cognitive accessibility, promoting universal design to make products and systems easier to understand and use.

As a Fulbright Scholar, she will link assistive technology terminology and practice frameworks from the U.S. and Australia to inform evidence-based education, policy and practice. In collaboration with the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) in Washington and the Rehabilitation Research Design & Disability (R2D2) Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, her project will develop a new methodology for delivering assistive technology products and services and produce specific research outputs to build capacity for international collaboration and standards in the field.

Xavier Symons Postdoctoral Scholars

Xavier is a Research Associate in the Institute for Ethics and Society at the University of Notre Dame, where he convenes a bioethics and healthcare ethics research program. A bioethicist with extensive philosophical training and clinical experience, Xavier’s research interests range from gene editing and genomics to ethical issues in aged care and end of life care. He is passionate about aged care reform, having volunteered in nursing homes in Sydney and Melbourne for several years and experienced first-hand the many human and organisational challenges facing aged care providers in Australia.  

Xavier’s Fulbright scholarship will take him to the Kennedy Institute for Ethics (KIE) at Georgetown University to complete a research project on the ethics of dementia, focusing in particular on issues identified in the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. Working with leading aged care and disability scholars at the KIE, Xavier aims to critically evaluate the conceptions of autonomy, personhood and personal identity that inform current medical models of dementia. He will draw upon an extensive body of philosophical and social scientific research to explore how patients with even severe forms of dementia retain communicative and decisional capacity, albeit in a diminished form. He will also offer recommendations for how practice can be adjusted to affirm the dignity and enduring personhood of individuals with advanced dementia. 

Eunice To Postdoctoral Scholars

Eunice graduated with a PhD from Monash University in 2017 where her research focused on understanding the molecular and biochemical processes that contribute to viral pathogenesis. Currently, she is working as a postdoctoral scientist whose research has improved the understanding of how cell biological processes exacerbate viral disease and developing innovative strategies for the treatment of respiratory infections.  

As a Fulbright Scholar, Eunice will be going to the Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School to advance her understanding in the molecular basis of cell-to-cell communication, and how this communication regulates embryonic and neural development in vertebrates. She will be trained by a world-leading expert in the field, Professor Xi He, to learn how this defective regulation of cell communication causes human cancers and diseases. 

Joseph West Postdoctoral Scholars

Joe will complete his Doctor of Philosophy in 2020 at the Queensland University of Technology researching machine learning (ML), more specifically improving the speed of learning for an artificial player learning any board game without human intervention. His interests include the study of universal artificial agents which could be applied to a diverse set of problems, and the use of ML to learn optimal control of complex systems. Joe also has an interest in Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) – a surgical therapy which uses the electrical stimulation of the brain to treat movement disorders arising from neurological illnesses like Parkinson’s Disease, Dystonia and Essential Tremor. DBS is also being investigated for use in psychiatric conditions like obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and post-traumatic-stress disorder.

For his Fulbright Future Scholarship Joe will be working with the Centre for Neurotechnology at UW researching how ML can provide automated adaptive control of DBS therapy for neurological conditions.   

Dr Sarmad Akkach Postgraduate Students

Sarmad is a doctor and researcher with an interest in global eye health. He holds a Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Adelaide and a Master of Medicine (Ophthalmic Science) from the University of Sydney. Since graduating, he has worked in Alice Springs, Darwin, Ballarat, and Melbourne and is involved in capacity-building projects in Myanmar, Ethiopia, and Vanuatu. As a Fulbright Scholar, Sarmad will undertake a Master of Public Health, where he will conduct research into novel methods of eye care delivery in rural and low-resource settings. Sarmad remains optimistic that the solution to ending cataract blindness is within reach of humans at their best and, through his research in the U.S., hopes to identify and work towards the most effective means of achieving this.

James Bailie Postgraduate Students

James currently works in the Data Access and Confidentiality Methods Unit at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. He researches new methods to maximise the utility of ABS statistics while ensuring the confidentiality of all Australians. He is passionate about better data use to inform public debate and decision making in the media, academia and the public service. James graduated from the Australian National University in 2017 with Honours in Mathematics. He will use his Fulbright Future Scholarship to complete a Doctorate in statistics. During his time in the U.S., James plans to contribute to ongoing research in privacy and confidentiality. He is also interested in developing new methods to utilise novel and unconventional data sources which are emerging in the current information era.

Dr Owen Bradfield Postgraduate Students

Owen is a dual-qualified medical practitioner and health lawyer, who aspires to solve complex dilemmas at the intersection of medicine, ethics and the law. A graduate of Monash University’s pioneering Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery and Bachelor of Laws double degree programme with First Class Honours, Owen combines medical practice with sessional appointments to Victoria’s Patient Review Panel, the Suitability Panel and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Ethics Committee. Owen’s PhD examines the relationship between medical regulation processes and doctors’ wellbeing. As a Fulbright Future Scholar, Owen will collaborate with global experts in patient safety research at Stanford Law School, where he hopes to better understand how complaints processes impact on doctors’ health in the United States. Owen hopes to strengthen existing research ties and unlock valuable policy insights to assist regulators and decision-makers simultaneously promote clinicians’ health, while safeguarding the public from preventable harm.

Dr Annabelle Brennan Postgraduate Students

Annabelle is a doctor working in obstetrics and gynaecology. Through her undergraduate studies in medicine and law she has developed an interest in healthcare governance, particularly safety and quality. As a Fulbright Scholar, Annabelle hopes to undertake a Master of Public Health with a focus on health management and leadership, which will allow her to develop a greater understanding of the interplay between health management and patient safety. She has a particular interest in the role that organisational culture plays in enabling clinicians to provide safe, high-quality care to patients and their families. 

Victoria Bridgland Postgraduate Students

Victoria is a PhD candidate in the College of Education, Psychology, and Social Work at Flinders University, Adelaide. Victoria’s research focuses on the emotional and behavioural effects of Trigger Warnings—warnings alerting people that particular content may be distressing. Trigger Warnings are now widespread, appearing on social and regular media sources and in the official mental health policy at some universities. Trigger Warnings are said to aid mental well-being by helping consumers avoid or mentally prepare themselves for content they may find distressing. However, critics argue that Trigger Warnings may instead have negative effects, such as encouraging people to feel anxious, or to avoid everyday situations. Research on how effectively these warnings work, or indeed whether they work at all, is timely and important. For her Fulbright Scholarship, Victoria will work in Professor Richard McNally’s laboratory at Harvard University, with a focus on Trigger Warnings and social media. 

Adam Briner Postgraduate Students

Adam is a Medical Doctor and PhD student studying at the Queensland Brain Institute in Brisbane. He is excited and grateful for the opportunity afforded to him by his Fulbright Future Scholarship to study at Stanford University in the laboratory of Professor Aaron Gitler. Adam’s doctorate focuses on how tau protein pathologically accumulates in neurons and induces neurodegeneration in dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease. Specifically, Adam is interested in how tau influences a biophysical phenomenon called liquid-liquid phase separation to dictate where and when new proteins are synthesised in the synaptic regions of neurons. This project will elucidate new mechanisms through which tau mediates, and ultimately dysregulates, fundamental pathways in neuronal physiology, and in doing so aims to identify novel therapeutic targets. As a future medical student, Adam anticipates a future where he is amongst the first generation of researcher-doctors able to understand, prescribe and deliver such new-age therapies.

Francesca Cary Postgraduate Students

Francesca is a geologist and a geneticist who is interested in the role that minerals played in the origin of life, and how this relates to locating potential environments in our solar system which could harbour life as we (don’t) know it, such as the methane lakes of Saturn’s moon Titan or the icy worlds of Mars and Europa. She aspires to conduct research in collaboration with NASA which contributes towards creating technologies designed to detect signs of life on other planets, as well as the practical benefits this technology would have on Earth. Francesca will use her Fulbright Scholarship to increase Australia’s contribution to space exploration missions by applying what she learns in her master’s degree to leverage Australia’s unique strengths in planetary science. She aims to inspire a new generation of scientists and build the global collaboration required for humankind to explore beyond the reaches of the Moon.

Samuel Cheeseman Postgraduate Students

Sam graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Science (Advanced), with a major in Microbiology and received First Class Honours in Biotechnology from Swinburne University of Technology. His current PhD research at RMIT University involves the development of functional nanomaterials for antimicrobial applications to combat the rapid development of antimicrobial resistance in pathogenic micro-organisms. During his time at North Carolina State University, Sam will work under Professor Michael Dickey, a world leading researcher in material science, which will complement his background in microbiology. In particular, his project will involve the manipulation of liquid metals to develop stimuli-activated antimicrobial nanomaterials for biomedical applications. North Carolina has a prominent biotechnology sector and start-up scene. The Fulbright Scholarship will provide Sam with a deeper understanding of how to successfully bridge the gap between academia and industry. He hopes to share this knowledge with fellow researchers on his return to Australia.

Allison Cheung Postgraduate Students

Allison received her Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and her Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology from Yale University. During her undergraduate years, she developed a passion for global public health and an interest in preventing zoonotic disease outbreaks. She completed an MPH thesis on the viral persistence of Ebola in survivors in order to inform revisions of the World Health Organization’s clinical care guidelines.  

For her Fulbright Scholarship, Allison will conduct research with the veterinary epidemiology department at the University of Melbourne. Through the World Organization for Animal Health’s Collaborating Centre for Diagnostic Test Validation Science in the Asia-Pacific Region, she will be developing statistical models to evaluate the accuracy of diagnostic tests for newly emerging zoonotic diseases that do not yet have a gold standard. She hopes to develop an evaluation pathway that can be used to validate novel, rapidly–developed diagnostic assays for use in outbreak settings. 

Monique Chilver Postgraduate Students

Monique is a PhD candidate and program manager for the national influenza surveillance system – the Australian Sentinel Practices Research Network (ASPREN). Monique began working as the ASPREN program manager in 2009 during the H1N1 influenza pandemic. Her work has seen the surveillance system evolve from a simple, paper and web-based data collection system to include virological testing, automated data extraction, and point-of-care testing. Monique is passionate about improving the health of people in underserved populations. Her latest project, working with the University of Washington on the Australian arm of the Seattle Flu study – flu@home study – involved the assessment and enhancement of an in-home test for influenza, coupled with an app that collects patient symptom and risk-factor data. Through support from the Fulbright Commission and The Kinghorn Foundation, Monique will work with Professor Matthew Thompson and Associate Professor Barry Lutz at the University of Washington. Her work will focus on further enhancement of the flu@home app in a bid to create a cheap and accurate test for influenza that could be utilised by individuals without access to healthcare, or as a surveillance tool in countries that cannot afford traditional methods of surveillance. In addition, she will forge collaboration and research opportunities at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Through understanding how U.S. disease surveillance systems work, Monique plans to further enhance Australia’s influenza surveillance systems.

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. 

Guy Coleman Postgraduate Students

Guy is a Precision Weed Control Scientist at the University of Sydney, based in Narrabri, NSW and is passionate about the use of machine learning and robotics in weed management. His research investigates alternative control technologies, all of which are enabled by machine learning-driven weed detection. Guy is active in agricultural advocacy, founding AgriEducate to help connect consumers with producers and holding positions on the AgriFutures Ignite Advisory Panel and previously as Vice-Chair, Ag Institute Australia. Guy’s PhD focuses on the impact of plant biology on machine learning-driven detection, quantifying how crop-weed similarity and growth stage influence accuracy.  

As a Fulbright Future Scholar, Guy will complete a six-month research program with the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M University. The research will focus on developing efficient machine learning data pipelines and testing how growth stage of wheat, cotton and relevant weeds influences detection accuracy. The research will assist in the development of improved site-specific weed management opportunities in both U.S. and Australian conditions, reducing the cost and impact of herbicidal options, whilst opening doors for alternative weed control techniques. 

Mark Czeisler Postgraduate Students

Mark received his Bachelor of Arts in Neurobiology with a minor in Global Health and Health Policy from Harvard College. As an undergraduate, Mark worked in Professor Jeff Lichtman’s neuroimaging lab, where he investigated mechanisms that brain cells use to communicate with each other and coordinate daily mental, physical, and behavioral cycles—including the sleep-wake cycle. Mark’s commitment to improving sleep health in today’s 24/7 society prompted him to work with classmates to form the Harvard College Sleep Matters Initiative to study undergraduate sleep patterns and provide students resources to improve sleep on campus.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Mark aims to evaluate the impact of the disruption of daily cycles, including sleep, on patient health outcomes in the Austin Hospital Intensive Care Unit. The study will provide unique insights into ICU patient experiences, and Mark is optimistic that results from this project may inform sleep-conscious ICU protocols going forward.

Ruebena Dawes Postgraduate Students

Ruebena graduated from University of Sydney in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science (Advanced Mathematics), First Class Honours and the University Medal. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney with her research project focused on improving and applying computational techniques to find hard-to-detect disease-causing genetic variants in rare disorders. Her research will enable Australian families with rare disorders to have access to the latest cutting-edge technologies in genomics and provide a precise genetic answer for over 200 families with genetic conditions that could not be solved through conventional diagnostic testing. As a Fulbright Future Scholar, Ruebena will train in the laboratory of one of the world’s foremost experts in genomic informatics at Yale School of Medicine, to find genetic answers for an undiagnosed cohort of 82 families with rare disorders. Obtaining a precise genetic diagnosis is of utmost importance for families with genetic conditions, guiding clinical care and enabling precision and preventative medicine. Ruebena’s research will have a tangible positive impact on many Australian lives. 

Hannah Fluhler Postgraduate Students

Hannah is a registered nurse who is passionate about providing the best care to the most vulnerable members of our communities. Previous clinical research experience and her time spent providing respite care for children with a rare, genetic blood disorder called Fanconi anemia (FA) led to her interest in the vital medical research that gives people with FA longer lives, faster diagnoses, and improved treatment methods. FA is a rare disorder that leads to loss of vital blood cells and a predisposition to develop cancers decades earlier than the general population.  

Hannah will spend her postgraduate Fulbright Scholarship in the Genome Stability Unit at St. Vincent’s Institute for Medical Research, screening for new detection tools that can identify a marker of FA. Findings will be used to develop a quick diagnostic blood test, that could be used in FA but also for assessing efficacy of certain treatments in all types of cancer. 

Courtney Gilchrist Postgraduate Students

Courtney is a PhD candidate at RMIT University who is passionate about improving long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes for the smallest and most vulnerable babies. Her research is focused on characterising brain dysmaturation in individuals born prematurely and the implications this may have for mental health later in life. 

As a Fulbright Future Scholar, Courtney will work at Washington University in St. Louis (Neonatal Developmental Research Laboratory) and Harvard Medical School to develop skills to analyse neuroimaging data using a machine learning approach. This approach will be used to detect complex patterns in connections within the brain that may underlie later anxiety. 

She hopes that her research will provide indicators of anxiety that may be used by clinicians for early detection and targeted interventions in prematurely born children. Upon her return, Courtney hopes to promote applications of machine learning technologies in the neuroscience and paediatrics community in Australia.   

Rebecca Harkins-Cross Postgraduate Students

Rebecca is a writer and cultural critic, who is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing at Monash University. Her previous positions include film editor at The Big Issue and theatre critic at The Age. Her research centres on the critical essay—a subgenre of the literary essay that is prominent in contemporary North American creative nonfiction—exploring how this hybridised literary mode creates space for previously marginalised critical voices and narratives. Such ideas are tested via her creative essay collection, Terror Australis, which examines the history of fear in Australian cinema. Rebecca’s Fulbright Scholarship will allow her to spend six months at Columbia School of the Arts’ Writing Program, an important nexus of creative and scholarly research. She will access literary archives, conduct interviews with essayists, forge cross-cultural literary communities, and learn more about the pedagogy of the writing workshop. 

Shane Harrison Postgraduate Students

Shane is a Gender Specialist for international humanitarian organisations and doctoral student at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. His doctoral research investigates how humanitarian actors respond to the protection needs of adolescent boys in emergencies, such as refugee or disaster settings. Previously, Shane worked for child protection, maternal health, and women’s organisations in Timor-Leste and Indonesia on gender equality and empowering women and girls. He completed his doctoral fieldwork while working for Swiss child protection organisation Terre des hommes in the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh. As a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia, Shane will develop a mixed-methods tool for assessing the capacity of child protection actors to respond to cases of sexual abuse against adolescent girls and boys in humanitarian emergencies. He intends to partner with humanitarian organisations to pilot the tool in ongoing crises, with a view to facilitating greater support for girl and boy survivors. 

Madison Hecht Postgraduate Students

Madison is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia, earning dual degrees in neuroscience and English. At the university as an Echols Scholar, she conducted research in neural development, contributing to her Distinguished Majors Thesis and sparking her interest in child brain development.

In partnership with renowned autism researcher Professor Liz Pellicano, Madison will use her Fulbright Scholarship to address autistic people’s increased risk of sexual victimization. Her study is co-produced with autistic researchers and elicits the perspectives of multiple informants, including young autistic people, their parents, and their teachers. Her findings will illuminate what good ‘sex and relationships’ education looks like for this population and ultimately influence Australian educational policy and practice. It is her hope that this project helps ensure that the rights of autistic people, to feel safe and supported in their schools and communities, are protected and promoted.

Dr Allison Hempenstall Postgraduate Students

Allison is passionate about improving healthcare through research and education. She is a specialist in rural and remote medicine and lives on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, providing primary and emergency medical care to her community. Her research focuses on tropical infectious diseases and she advocates for the building of research capacity within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. She is the Chair of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Registrar Committee and was awarded the 2019 Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine and Rural Doctors Association of Australia Rural Registrar of the Year Award.

With her Fulbright Scholarship, Allison will study a Master of Public Health specialising in global health and infectious diseases. Allison plans to return to Australia and continue working in partnership with Indigenous people to improve their health outcomes.

Caroline Hendy Postgraduate Students

Caroline is passionate about Linguistics and the intersection of language and education, particularly with respect to the educational experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. She has completed a Bachelor of Languages with Honours in Linguistics at the Australian National University, analysing part of the sound system of a newer Aboriginal language called Light Warlpiri. Since 2017, she has also been working on the creation of resources for teaching another Aboriginal language, Kriol, to English speakers online. As a Fulbright Scholar, Caroline hopes to begin a PhD with which she will gain experience in community-centred linguistics and fieldwork, and the skills to make a strong, positive contribution to mother-tongue and bilingual education programs. 

Nicholas Hindley Postgraduate Students

Nicholas currently serves as a lecturer in the first-year statistics and data science programs at the University of Sydney as well as a PhD candidate at the ACRF Image X Institute. His doctoral research focuses on using artificial intelligence and sophisticated image processing to drive improvements in image-guided radiotherapy. By taking lung cancer as its starting point, his work seeks to address the predominant driver of cancer-related death and one of the most challenging sites in radiation therapy. As a Fulbright Scholar, Nicholas will join the machine learning group at the MGH/HST Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. During his time as a Fulbright researcher, Nicholas hopes to initiate a binational research program which combines translational expertise in Australia with the strong artificial intelligence profile of the U.S. He is confident that this global and multi-disciplinary approach will be crucial to the safe and effective implementation of machine learning in the clinic. 

Huw Jarvis Postgraduate Students

Huw is a PhD student at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health at Monash University. He is passionate about translating research findings into improvements in health care practice and policy, and ultimately into better outcomes for people with psychiatric and neurological disease. Prior to his PhD, he completed studies in medical science (University of Tasmania) and public health (University of Melbourne), and worked in research translation at the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia’s leading expert body in health and medical research. He also completed policy internships at the Grattan Institute (Melbourne) and the World Health Organization (Geneva).

Huw’s Fulbright Future Scholarship at Yale University will enable him to develop mathematical models of mood and motivation in people experiencing depression. He will collect data remotely from participants using smartphones – a new approach that shows great promise for estimating individual differences related to brain functioning.

Ariana Kam Postgraduate Students

Ariana is a rising third-year medical student at Boston University School of Medicine. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and a secondary degree in Film/Video from Harvard University in 2016. As a postgraduate, Ariana has focused on creating educational animations that convey medical concepts to a wider audience.

For her Fulbright project, Ariana will create a series of stop-motion animations exploring perspectives on substance use in Sydney. She will draw upon the stories of public health researchers, physicians, and current and former users. She aims to create a film series that will both destigmatize addiction and facilitate discussions surrounding current public health interventions in Sydney. Her films will highlight the following topics: the Australian heroin shortage, the Uniting Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in Kings Cross, and The Parents’ and Children’s Program at Odyssey House NSW.

Liam Tay Kearney Postgraduate Students

Liam graduated from the University of Western Australia in 2019 with a Bachelor of Philosophy (Honours) in Economics and Finance, and a Diploma in Mandarin Chinese. He was previously the Australian Government’s New Colombo Plan Fellow to China (2017), having studied and worked there for nearly three years, and maintains active involvement in Sino-Australia relations as Partnerships Manager for the Australia-China Youth Dialogue (ACYD).  

Liam is particularly interested in the intersection of international trade and development, completing placements at the United Nations Capital Development Fund (Myanmar), KPMG Advisory and the Australian Embassy (Beijing). He plans to pursue a master’s degree in the U.S. to deepen his knowledge on changing patterns of trade and foreign investment, and their implications for developing economies. 

Narelle Keating Postgraduate Students

Narelle is a PhD candidate in the Nicholson laboratory at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) in Melbourne.  For her Fulbright Future Scholarship, Narelle will work in the laboratory of Professor Jean-Laurent Casanova at Rockefeller University in New York. In the Casanova laboratory, Narelle will have access to clinical samples collected from patients, where she will investigate whether patients with rare genetic mutations in important immune signalling molecules are more susceptible to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. Narelle’s research will advance our understanding of molecular signalling within immune cells and the fundamental components that not only drive the immune response, but also those that switch it off.  Findings may inform clinical practice, by triggering genetic counselling for patients and their families who are found to carry these rare genetic variants or implementing targeted vaccination strategies to ‘at risk’ individuals. 

Florence Lui Postgraduate Students

Florence is undertaking a PhD in Professor Charles C. Sorrell’s research group at UNSW Sydney’s School of Materials Science and Engineering in collaboration with Professor Ralph J. Mobbs of Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney. Her project involves developing multifunctional mineral-biologics coatings on materials used to fabricate orthopaedic devices. The end goal of this work is to address one of the key causes of failed surgeries (aseptic loosening, failed implant-bone bonding in the absence of an infection) by enhancing and expediting the osseointegration (implant-bone bonding) process. Florence will be working with Professor Lara A. Estroff’s research group at Cornell University’s School of Materials Science and Engineering that has pioneered innovative characterization techniques of early stages of biomineralization. These techniques will be applied as analytical tools for the characterization of the hybrid coatings, with particular focus on the interfaces. This opportunity will initiate an Australian-American research collaboration that involves research universities, orthopaedic surgeons, and biomaterial device manufacturers. Since such coatings are just emerging and in their nascent stages of growth, this work has the potential to direct the controlled engineering of next-generation hybrid coatings for orthopaedic devices. The novel technology shows promise in improving patient outcomes through shorter recovery periods, lowering the risk of failure, and ultimately reducing economic burden on health systems. 

Michael Lukin Postgraduate Students

Michael holds a Bachelor of Music with first-class honours from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts where he specialised in conducting and early keyboard performance. He also obtained a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Western Australia with a double major in Music Studies and Political Science, graduating in 2018. While at UWA, Michael resided at St George’s College where he was supported by the Eric Glasgow Memorial Bursary, several Argyle Scholarships and was Organ Scholar from 2017-2018. Michael was the Assistant Organist of St George’s Cathedral from 2016-2019 and holds an AMusA and LMusA from the AMEB, winning the A. J. Leckie Memorial Award for the best diploma candidate in WA in 2015. As a singer, Michael frequently performs with groups such as the St George’s Cathedral Consort, the Giovanni Consort and the WA Opera Company. Michael intends to use his Fulbright Scholarship to study a Master of Music in conducting to equip him with the necessary skills to educate and provide opportunities for future generations of musicians in Australia. 

Lucy Holmes McHugh Postgraduate Students

Lucy is a political scientist and filmmaker who works across areas of climate change, conservation and sustainability. Lucy’s PhD topic is the framing of climate risk and crisis in UNESCO’s World Heritage convention, with a comparative case of the Everglades and Great Barrier Reef. As part of her Fulbright research, she will make a documentary to explore filmmaking as a new method in international relations. Prior to her PhD, Lucy lived in Indonesia, working at the Centre for International Forestry Research in science communications. She has a Master’s degree in Development Practice and a Master of Public Policy.  

Lucy will use the Fulbright Scholarship to extend her existing research capacity and networks at the University of Michigan. She aims to be a leader in sustainability who can effectively communicate the political and social dimensions of climate change to policymakers, stakeholders and the public. 

Somya Mehra Postgraduate Students

Somya is currently a research assistant at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and Burnet Institute. Over the past two years, she has been researching the epidemiology of malaria, with a focus on parasite genomics. Somya has also developed mathematical models of parasite dynamics and host immunity as student researcher at the University of Melbourne. In 2020, Somya will commence a Master of Science (Mathematics and Statistics) at the University of Melbourne. Her project will focus on barcoding, a genomic tool that involves taking DNA ‘fingerprints’ from malaria parasites to uncover transmission dynamics and population connectivity. Using mathematical models of the parasite genome, Somya will investigate the ability of barcoding to capture trends in parasite relatedness. As a Fulbright Future Scholar, she will work with Caroline Buckee’s team at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health to optimise barcoding, with the aim of maximising outputs from genomic surveillance in malaria endemic areas. 

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.

Dr Brian Raphael Nabors Postgraduate Students

Brian is a versatile composer, performer, educator and artist with a unique background that fosters innovative approaches to various aspects of musical composition, pedagogy and analysis. He is a critical thinker dedicated to creating clear strategies that enable the general public to develop a deeper relationship with contemporary concert music and its benefits. 

Brian will spend his time at the University of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music studying with internationally acclaimed composer, Carl Vine. During the grant period, he seeks to conduct research and create original compositions that reflect humanity and music’s power to unite communities of different cultures. Brian also seeks to volunteer with local arts organizations to mentor youth and establish connections with the Australian musical community. He hopes to utilize the experience during Fulbright to create concert and performance opportunities for underrepresented communities in classical music in cities across the United States. 

Cebrina Nolan Postgraduate Students

Cebrina graduated with high honors from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) with a Bachelor of Science in Entomology. During her enrollment, Cebrina investigated the behavior-altering properties of emerald jewel wasp venom in the Adams’ lab. Following her graduation, she joined the Yamanaka lab at UCR as a full-time lab technician while finishing off her project in the Adams lab.

For her Fulbright, Cebrina will be analyzing the structure and function of specific Australian funnel web spider toxins (agatoxins) to identify their bioinsecticidal and medicinal properties. Cebrina’s current mentor, Dr Michael Adams, was the first to identify agatoxins and will be collaborating with her during her Fulbright. Her project will be conducted under a renowned toxinologist, Dr Glenn King, at the University of Queensland where she will be in contact with many valuable resources. Cebrina’s Fulbright experience will allow her to acquire the necessary knowledge, connections, and skills to pursue toxin research.

Alison Ong Postgraduate Students

Alison comes from a multidisciplinary background, drawing from economics, policy, and technical analysis to solve complex environmental problems. Her experiences range from laboratory research on emerging solar technologies at UC Berkeley to political advocacy work in California. Most recently, she was employed as a Consultant in San Francisco at Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc. where she evaluated variable energy generation interactions with the electric grid. Her major projects involved providing expertise on battery storage impacts and deployment for state regulators in California and New York. 

For her Fulbright project, Alison will conduct a comparative study of renewable integration challenges in California and Australia, and the potential for overcoming them using energy storage technologies to moderate variable power generation. She hopes her findings will provide guiding principles for system-wide change that will further dialogue, promote collaboration, and advance action towards a greener future in both California and Australia. 

Penny Pascoe Postgraduate Students

Penny is passionate about understanding remote and wild ecosystems and undertaking research applicable to conservation and management. Islands are global biodiversity hotspots but are often threatened by invasive mammals. Whilst successful eradication of invasive mammals from islands is becoming more common, evaluating ecosystem response post-eradication is both challenging and expensive. Penny’s PhD is investigating the recovery of island ecosystems following the eradication of invasive mammals. Collaborating with leading researchers at NIU, Penny will investigate the use of stable isotopes to monitor the progression of recovery in island ecosystems by undertaking a large-scale natural experiment across more than 30 Australian, New Zealand and sub-Antarctic islands. Seabird guano provides significant nutrient input to many non-invaded islands, and these nutrients have a traceable stable isotope signature. By comparing never-invaded islands to islands at different stages post-eradication, Penny’s research will investigate a novel cost and time-efficient technique for assessing the progression of ecosystem recovery in Australia. 

Sasha Purcell Postgraduate Students

Sasha is a Lawyer and delegate for the United Nations Association of Australia-Qld Division. She is passionate about advocating for the rights of marginalised and isolated communities. As a Torres Strait Islander Sasha has a particular interest in the preservation and advancement of Indigenous human rights.

Sasha has practiced in the area of foreign affairs, Police Prosecutions (criminal and domestic violence law) and child Protection litigation and currently works as a researcher in Indigenous and social and criminal justice affairs. Sasha holds dual qualifications in Law and International Relations. As a Fulbright Scholar, Sasha hopes to study a Master of Laws specialising in international law, human rights and environmental law. Her aim is to understand the intersection of human rights law with regard to preventing and remedying crimes perpetrated against marginalised communities. Upon completion of the LLM program Sasha’s intention is to complete her PhD focusing on research relating to climate change and patterns of gendered violence whilst continuing to advocate at the United Nations.

Brandon RichardWebster Postgraduate Students

Brandon is a U.S. National Science Foundation Research Fellow and doctoral candidate at the University of Notre Dame. In his research, Brandon attempts to bridge the gap between human perception and artificial perception by playing the role of a psychologist for Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Brandon will use his Fulbright Future Scholarship to develop AI for an unmanned aerial vehicle, which can assist Bega Valley landcare owners in monitoring African Lovegrass (ALG), an invasive grass which endangers their livelihood. To enable monitoring in diverse conditions such as day, night, or rain, he will use his expertise in human derived artificial perception to create AI that mimics the subconscious cues experts use to identify ALG — helping the AI make decisions more like a human expert. Brandon hopes his research will help pioneer the automated detection of invasive grasses which negatively impact agriculture around the world.

Joey Rowlands Postgraduate Students

Joey is completing a PhD in quantum physics under the supervision of 2018 Australian of the Year, Professor Michelle Simmons. His research focus is to develop an atomically precise quantum integrated circuit, a major step towards building a quantum computer. 

As a Fulbright Future Scholar, Joey will work in the Harvard laboratory of Professor Amir Yacoby learning world leading measurement techniques for quantum computing. The outcome of this project will be to implement these techniques on silicon nanoelectronic  devices  to  accelerate  the  development  of  a quantum computer. Such a machine promises exponential advantage over classical computers in areas such as artificial intelligence, cyber security, financial services and drug development. 

Joshua Russell Postgraduate Students

Joshua completed a Bachelor of Computer Science at Griffith University in 2019, majoring in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. A lover of strategy and problem solving, he went from playing chess at a young age to competing in a professional esports league for over a year. He founded the Griffith Artificial Intelligence Society and is passionate about applying artificial intelligence within interdisciplinary fields, having conducted research under the Institute for Glycomics at Griffith University, one of Australia’s leading biomedical research institutes. As a Fulbright Future Scholar, Joshua will complete a PhD in Computer Science. Whilst abroad, he aims to enhance his academic abilities and establish strong institutional and industrial relationships between Australia and the United States. These relationships will assist him in applying this transformative technology within society and facilitating the growth of the artificial intelligence community in Australia. 

Nicholas Schumann Postgraduate Students

Nicholas obtained a Bachelor of Science (Advanced) and a Master of Philosophy in medicinal chemistry at the University of Adelaide. His current research focuses on the development of new therapeutics for treating tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is the world’s most lethal infectious disease, resulting in more fatalities each year than HIV and malaria combined. As with most bacterial infections, widespread antibiotic resistance exists for tuberculosis-related infections, resulting in an urgent need for new antibiotics. A recently identified enzyme found in the causative agent of tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, holds great promise as a new drug target for the treatment of this disease. Through the Fulbright Future Scholarship, Nicholas will investigate drug candidates which target this enzyme, and promising candidates will be translated into clinical trials. Nicholas has a passion for informing the public on scientific issues facing society and will use his scholarship to engage with others through tailored community outreach programs. 

Hamid Sediqi Postgraduate Students

Hamid is a PhD candidate and a passionate science communicator who is eager not only to advance the field of Tissue Engineering, but also, to engage the broader community with scientific and academic discourse through his podcast – Blab Coats. For his Fulbright, Hamid will spend 10 months at Tufts University working with Dr Michael Levin’s world leading team in Molecular Developmental Bioelectricity. Cells are biological machines that carry an electrical charge on their membranes, and just like machines, they use electricity to store and process information. While much of the research in the field has been focused on the cytoplasmic-membrane’s electrical dimensions, Hamid is exploring how the electrical properties of the cell nuclear-membrane affects what genes get activated during embryo development. This has the potential to reveal the electrical dimensions of the cell nucleus as an important regulator of stem-cell differentiation, knowledge that can be harnessed to advance tissue engineering. 

Siddhanth Sharma Postgraduate Students

Sid is currently a junior doctor at Royal Perth Hospital, graduating from the University of Notre Dame in 2018. He was awarded the School of Medicine Medal for his commitment to patients, contribution to social justice and academic excellence. Sid has always been naturally drawn to the questions public health seems best positioned to answer. This growing passion led to collaboration with the Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia surrounding a foot care quality improvement initiative. He received the John Snow Scholarship for his reflections on the experience, allowing him to share his thoughts at the Royal Australian College of Physician’s Congress. Sid will pursue a Master of Public Health in the United States, hoping to develop the skills, knowledge and models of thinking required to ask incisive population health questions and answer them effectively. He endeavours to forge a career in Public Health and/or General Practice. 

Dr Ranjana Srivastava, OAM Postgraduate Students

Ranjana is an oncologist, award-winning author and a regular columnist for The Guardian. She is the winner of the 2005 W.G. Walker Fulbright Award to undertake a fellowship in medical ethics at the University of Chicago. Ranjana works in the public hospital system where she is a passionate advocate for doctor-patient communication and holistic care of an ageing population. It is becoming increasingly important for healthcare professionals to have a voice in the policy arena. The Fulbright Future Scholarship will enable Ranjana to obtain a master’s degree in Public Policy that will supplement her considerable clinical skills with a strong ability to engage with the administrative and political decisions that have an impact on the day-to-day lives of doctors and patients. 

Emily Tan Postgraduate Students

Emily earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Bates College in 2019. She developed an interest in the study of infant development after spending time volunteering with young children and working as a research assistant at the Harvard Laboratory for Developmental Studies. Additionally, Emily is trained in classical piano and enjoys singing. 

With her Fulbright Scholarship, Emily will combine these two interests –– infant studies and music –– to investigate how lullabies impact early language acquisition in eight-month-olds. In addition to conducting her psycholinguistic experiment, Emily is spending time with mothers’ groups in New South Wales to learn about the structure and benefits of these support networks. She looks forward to bringing her findings and experiences in Australia back to the U.S. so as to inform early intervention strategies and speech-language therapies.

Lachlan Tegart Postgraduate Students

Lachlan is a PhD candidate at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania. His research is examining the triggers of hay fever, a common and debilitating allergic disease. As part of his Fulbright Future Scholarship, Lachlan will be working with a world leader in aerobiology (the study of airborne biological particles that affect human health). He will be implementing a new technique called the Halogen Immunoassay. This will provide scientifically robust information about which pollen types are triggers of allergy symptoms. Importantly, this method is able to detect novel pollen allergens, including Australian native taxa that cannot be tested for using conventional techniques. 

Upon his return to Tasmania, Lachlan hopes that his training will help to contribute to the knowledge of aerobiology in Australia which can foster improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of hay fever and allergies. 

Gemma Tierney Postgraduate Students

Gemma is an Indigenous physiotherapist of Kamilaroi descent, who graduated from the University of Sydney with First Class Honours in 2018. Gemma has physiotherapy work experience in both hospitals and private practices. Gemma has always been interested in health, but her particular passion lies within improving the wellbeing of Indigenous mothers and children. She is currently working with maternal and paediatric populations through her engagement in internships and mentoring roles. Gemma also tutors Indigenous physiotherapy students at the University of Sydney. As a Fulbright Scholar, Gemma plans to study a Master of Public Health, specialising in maternal and paediatric health. She aspires to become a leader within the health landscape and pursue a career that provides more equitable healthcare to Indigenous women and children. Through her postgraduate studies and professional work, Gemma aims to strive towards achieving the “Close the Gap” initiatives within the maternal and paediatric health sector. 

Lily Wang Postgraduate Students

Lily is a PhD candidate at the Australian National University. She studies molecular dynamics, a method that uses computers to simulate the movement of molecules over time. Although molecular dynamics simulations are powerful tools in the drug discovery pipeline, their applicability is limited by the inaccuracy of force fields: the algorithms used to calculate the energy associated with the particles.

With the Fulbright Future Scholarship, Lily will visit University of California, Irvine to work with Professor David Mobley’s group and the Open Force Field consortium to contribute to a new generation of force fields. These new force fields are developed to be accurate, flexible, open-source, and frequently updated to keep up with the fast pace of computational chemistry. When she returns, she will continue the international collaboration and share this experience and expertise in force field development with the Australian research community. Improving the performance of computational simulations will greatly increase the efficiency of pharmaceutical research.

Isaac Ward Postgraduate Students

Isaac is currently applying Artificial Intelligence to the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases, whilst also solving technical challenges in the field of Computer Science. His primary research interest is studying Artificial Intelligence (AI) – a field concerned with creating algorithms that can accomplish tasks that are typically only completed by humans. Specifically, he is interested in how these algorithms learn to mimic complex human capabilities. As an advocate of using AI within the medical industry, Isaac is also interested in leveraging these technologies to improve the quality and accessibility of healthcare.

He will use his Fulbright Scholarship to pursue these interests via postgraduate studies, whilst also exploring how AI research is rapidly applied to industry challenges within the United States. Ultimately, he intends to improve the standard of Australian healthcare by applying this knowledge to analogous problems within the Australian
medical industry.

Alice Yan Postgraduate Students

Alice has significant expertise in environmental law, having worked across the world, including in Japan, Germany and the U.K. She is a dual-qualified lawyer, in Australia and England & Wales. For the past few years, Alice has served in senior legal positions in Australian government. Recently at the NSW Environment Protection Authority, Alice acted as the lead counsel for the state’s largest litter reduction initiative. Alice was appointed a member of the Australian delegation to the World Social Forum in Tunisia. 

As a Fulbright Scholar, Alice will explore the world-leading and often audacious environmental policies pioneered in the U.S. Over two years, she will specialise in the ground-breaking science that has driven these policies. Alice hopes to apply this learning to help shape the future of Australian environmental policy. 

Chloe Yap Postgraduate Students

Chloe is a MD/PhD student at the University of Queensland, supervised by Dr Jacob Gratten and Professor Naomi Wray. Her research integrates large genomic and clinical datasets to understand how the entire body – and not just the mind – is affected by autism spectrum disorder. Chloe is fundamentally motivated to understand the interplay between brain and body – an area of medicine that is poorly understood yet contributes to both physical and mental health. As a Fulbright Future Scholar, Chloe will work with Dr Michael Gandal at the University of California, Los Angeles. She will analyse novel brain genomic datasets to better understand autism genetics and hopes to contribute to a clinical trial investigating a drug that may ameliorate disabling aspects of autism. Ultimately, Chloe plans to leverage precision medicine approaches and systems-level perspectives to progress towards new diagnostics and treatments in psychiatry, where few options currently exist. 

Dr Grace Yeung Postgraduate Students

Grace was the first medical student in Australia to be awarded a New Colombo Scholarship by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2015 for her project in post-war health policy. Since then, she has also served as the executive director of the renowned Australian Medical Student Journal and contributed to numerous research projects including the characterisation of a novel fusion protein designed to prevent pancreatic cell death, which was awarded the 2017 Mater Honours Scholarship and the 3MT People’s Choice Award.

Grace will use her Fulbright Scholarship to pursue her research interests in philosophy, focussing on fields including epistemology, metaphysics, ontology and religious philosophy. It is her aim to merge knowledge of these fields with neurobiological research to effectively alleviate symptoms of psychiatric illness. She aspires to become an author, academic and itinerant speaker, with a focus on the crossover between philosophy, theology and human behaviour.

Ben Ye Postgraduate Students

Ben is a lawyer with a strong interest in public and constitutional law. As they regulate and constraint the exercise of public powers, they are capable of affecting the life of every Australian. After graduating from the Australian National University with a University Medal, Ben has worked with public law in various roles. He was an Associate to the Honourable Chief Justice Helen Murrell of the ACT Supreme Court, a volunteer at Legal Aid ACT and Canberra Community Law and has participated in public interest litigations before the High Court. He has also published articles and commentaries on constitutional doctrines as applicable to an evolving Australian society. Ben will use his Fulbright Scholarship to pursue a Master of Law at a leading U.S. institution. He hopes that through a comparative study of public and constitutional law, he can better contribute to legal and constitutional reform initiatives in Australia for the future. 

Shelby Young Postgraduate Students

Shelby is a recent graduate of Texas Tech University, earning a Master of Science in Crop and Soil Science. She will continue her research on Verticillium wilt of cotton, an economically important fungal disease, through the Fulbright Program.  

Shelby will be working in the pathology lab of Dr Karen Kirkby at the Australian Cotton Research Institute (ACRI). Her work will involve the field-validation of a Verticillium wilt pathogen inoculum threshold system for informing cotton growers of their disease risk. Young will also examine the relationship between Verticillium wilt, nitrogen, and irrigation in a field trial at the ACRI. Partnering with Dr Jonathan Plett of Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Shelby will carry out a growth chamber study to analyze the metabolic responses of the cotton plant and Verticillium wilt pathogen during the infection process.   

Janet Zhong Postgraduate Students

Janet completed a Bachelor of Philosophy (Science) with Physics Honours at the Australian National University in 2019 in the Nonlinear Physics Centre. She is currently interested in quantum topological photonics and atomic arrays, where the overarching goal of these fields is quantum computing applications. She previously completed an internship at Nanyang Technological University in topological photonics. Janet has tutored at science camps such as the Curious Minds and Physics Olympiad program run by Australian Science Innovations. As a Fulbright scholar, Janet will begin a PhD in the United States on topological photonics.