Hurricanes don’t have silver linings. Neither do earthquakes, drought or many other problems. But the aftermath of Katrina and other recent disasters have shown the face of people coming together in the name of community, and they have shown the great leadership of grassroots work.

Building knowledgable and understanding leaders is one of the goals of the Fulbright exchange program. As a global network of alumni, the Fulbright Academy of Science & Technology wants to expand leaders at all levels. We want innovative ideas to come to fruition by building ties, by promoting research, and by supporting individual growth.

This is our November 2005 issue of the Fulbright Forum, our electronic bulletin. We are an international network of scientists, executives, and scholars established by alumni of the Fulbright Exchange Program, and we invite you to join us.

Over the last few months, the Fulbright Academy has been expanding, with more individual, corporate and institutional members and also with more subscribers to this bulletin. So, thank you for the support, and thank you to individuals, such as Dr. Reinhard, Dr. George, Ms. Dumont, and Dr. Wik, who have played an important role in recruiting some of our newest members. If you would like to recommend individuals or institutions who might want to join, just click on the link below and send us their names and email addresses.

For our upcoming “Fulbrighters in Science” Conference has received strong support from several partners, especially the German-US Fulbright Commission. They and others also deserve strong thanks. For example, the British Fulbright Scholars Association (BFSA) printed a half-page story about the conference in their newsletter, and the US Embassy in Belgrade is funding the participation of two alumni. Fulbright Commissions worldwide have played a key marketing role by telling current grantees about the conference. The result is that we have over 120 people who would like to attend.

The Academy had a busy fall, with numerous meetings with individuals and members. Because of all of the work, we are in the process of hiring its second Fulbright alum to assist with organizational development and program management. Our mid-term goal is to have staff based in the US, Europe and Asia.

Some of our recent events and programs are ••• a forum on tissue transplants in Leuven, Belgium (at the Catholic University) ••• a program in Rabat, Morocco (during the Moroccan Fulbright Alumni Association’s 2nd annual meeting) ••• a dinner in Arlington, VA (across the street from the National Science Foundation which AmidEast helped promote) ••• a small reception in Baltimore, MD (during the Fulbright Association’s 28th annual meeting) ••• a program in Cambridge, MA (as part of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony & Lectures).

We also have been preparing for our winter series of programs as well as some special events to take place in 2006, which is the 60th Anniversary of the Fulbright Exchange Program. ••• Our Fulbrighters in Science Conference is on March 4-5 in Berlin. We are still accepting registrations and abstracts for those who wish to participate in the poster session. ••• Our Annual Meeting will be in St. Louis on February 17, 2006, during the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). ••• Also on February 17, we are hosting a Career Development Workshop focusing on international educational exchange. The workshop will be open to any of the thousands of scientists attending the AAAS meeting. ••• In addition, we are working on a symposium, to be held in St. Louis at the Webster University Center for International Education.

As for the remainder of 2006, we have started conversations about programs with some of our partners and institutional members, such as a symposium at a major east coast university during International Education Week in November. If you would like to partner with us on a program, please send us a note.

“Fulbrighters in Science" will be held in Berlin, Germany on the weekend of March 4-5, 2006. The program will include a dynamic mix of keynotes, interactive sessions, and opportunities for participants and speakers to network with each other. It also features several optional sessions, including tours of local institutions.

Here is an update on some of the presenters and programs.

We are pleased to announce that the Fulbright Teachers Exchange Program will be sponsoring one of the panel sessions – a discussion on science education at the kindergarten through 12th grade levels (hard science as well as social science). The panel will include K-12 teachers from the United States and abroad. Other conference panels will cover topics such as science policy, internet & education, science & international development, medicine, and financing R&D. We also will have round-table discussions on sociology, marine conservation, microbiology, education reform, and international business.

Many Fulbright student grantees are expected, and the first student grantees have already registered. The first five student Fulbrighters to sign up for our science conference were all women (now, what does that say about the strength of women in science?). They are ••• Ms. Alaina Baker (Kenyon College graduate – neuroscience research in Germany) ••• Ms. Jennifer Helgeson (Brandeis University graduate – environmental development in Norway) ••• Ms. Katherine Luna (Stanford graduate – physics in the Netherlands) ••• Ms. Meredith Schuman (UW-Madison graduate – at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Germany) ••• Ms. Kate Pierce-McManamon (William & Mary graduate – cultural research in Germany). A full list of expected attendees can be found on our website.

We are pleased to announce that the USA Embassy in Belgrade is supporting the participation of two representatives: Prof. Marija Bogdanovic from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade, and Prof. Vesna Karadzic from the Faculty of Economics in Podgorica. We also have been told by the Moroccan Fulbright Alumni Association that they hope to secure funding to help underwrite the participation by 2-3 of their members.

The conference is designed for people in the natural and social sciences, economics, engineering, and technology, and for those whose personal or business interests relate to those fields. Presentations will not be overly technical, but rather geared toward an audience of educated individuals. The regular registration fee is 150 Euros ($182).

George Mason University invited our Executive Director to attend a three-day symposium on Exploring the Collection of History Online (their ECHO initiative). During the program, attendees reviewed best practices for collecting personal stories from those who experienced recent historical developments and mechanisms for promoting history research and disseminating that information online. Other attendees came from the Library of Congress, National Library of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, the Smithsonian, and other museums.

The knowledge gleaned from the seminar is being used to develop the Fulbright Academy’s archive of stories from grantees. Some of these stories are posted online at www.Fulbrighter.org, and you can contribute your own story as well. This project was started by a grant from the Alfred Sloan Foundation. One of our new institutional members is also involved: Rooks Communications. Rooks is a small firm that focuses on communications work for non-profit environmental and conservation organizations. They are assisting with the redesign of our website and other outreach efforts.

In addition to an online archive, the Academy also has a print archive. Dr. Alfred Conklin of Wilmington College in Ohio recently contributed three of his books: "Introduction to Soil Chemistry," "Field Sampling – principles and practices in environmental analysis," and "Soil Demonstrations for Geoscience, Environmental Science, Soil Science." We use these archives to demonstrate to pubic audiences the broad range of work carried out by Fulbright grantees, and we welcome your submissions.

GC3 Strategy is another new institutional member. This consulting firm advises on strategic planning, global government affairs, global process management and capital formation. It operates from offices in the United States, China, Taiwan, and India. Prior to founding the firm, Terry Cooke had a distinguished 15 year career with the U. S. Foreign Commercial Service in Asia and Europe that culminated in a U.S. Senate appointment to the Senior Foreign Service.

The National Science Foundation asked us to remind you about their Gradate Research Summer Institutes, a program which sends US Graduate Students to Australia, China, Japan, Korea or Japan to work or carry out research for 8 weeks during the summer semester. It is open to students in biological sciences, engineering, geosciences, computer science, math, and social, behavioral, and economic sciences. The deadline for applications in Dec. 13, 2005. Information is available at www.nsf.gov/eapsi.

FAST is expanding our institutional relations with the academic community though research collaborations. The first one is funded by a US National Science Foundation (NSF) award to the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Indiana University, Bloomington, with the Fulbright Academy as a subcontractor. The Academy will work with the two principal investigators and other Fulbright grantees and partners in the US and overseas to create educational modules that will increase the public's level of scientific literacy and help the public better understand the positive role that soil bacteria play in the environment.

The project will serve as a model for other collaborations and science literacy projects conducted as a partnership between the Fulbright Academy and researchers in the US and abroad. If you or your colleagues are submitting a grant proposal for a major research project, please contact the Academy so that we can discuss opportunities for you to partner with the Academy or with its members. It may increase your chance of getting the grant.

The Institute for International Education (IIE) has released some preliminary figures about applications for the next round of US Fulbright student exchanges. Over 8,000 students started the application process, and 5,600 completed applications were received for the 1,200 slots available to US students. The applicant pool is expanding. The current round includes students from 160 US institutions that had not had applicants during the last five years.

The German-American Fulbright Commission recently welcomed the largest ever contingent of Fulbright Teaching Assistants, which is component of the student exchange program. The program’s goal is to bring native-speaker skills to the teaching of English. In 2005-06 year, German schools are hosting a record 123 American teaching assistants (or around 10% of all student grantees). This high number reflects the demand for these highly qualified American graduates among the German states as well as the rising application numbers in the U.S.

The US State Department recently awarded 40 grants to national Fulbright organizations and commissions in an effort to strengthen alumni networks. Grants will be used to create or expand Fulbright alumni databases in Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Morocco, Namibia, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the West Bank. Funds will also be used for outreach activities in Austria, Cambodia, Dominican Republic, India, Israel, Mexico, Nicaragua, Oman, Panama, Poland, Taiwan, Thailand, and Zambia.

The Fulbright Association (US) recently its 28th Annual Conference in Baltimore, MD in early November. The keynote speaker was Mr. Christopher Nordlinger, of Cisco Systems, who spoke about technology education and the need to recruit more young Americans to study science and engineering. In a separate program, over 100 people attended the special discussion on invasive species, with panelists from the Nature Conservancy, the US Geological Survey, the Smithsonian, and the University of Tennessee.

(Source: Alumni.State.Gov, Fulbright Commissions, and personal communications)

Senator Fulbright's face on the cover of Time Magazine was a symbol of his achievements. Here is a short selection of updates about Fulbrighters in science & technology fields who are successful and doing interesting work today. They are based on materials produced by various Fulbright Commissions.

Professor John Braithwaite has won the highest award in the international study of criminology, the Prix Emile Durkeim, presented at the World Congress of Criminology in the US in August. Dr. Braithwaite won the award based on his work on criminal justice reform - restorative justice that focuses on repairing that harm caused following a crime through a series of face-to-face conferences between victims, offenders, and community members. In addition to being a Fulbright scholar himself (1979), he has hosted visiting Fulbrighters, such as Dr. Kim Cook, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Southern Maine who worked with him at the Australian National University while on a Fulbright in 2001.

Dr. Prasad Gogineni has become the director of the new $19 million Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) within the University of Kansas' newly established Science & Technology Center. Dr Gogineni conducted research at the University of Tasmania Antarctic Cooperative Research Center in Hobart with Dr. Victoria Lytle in 2002.

Professor R.P. Kaushik, a recipient of two Fulbright grants and former President of the Fulbright Alumni Association, Delhi Chapter, was appointed Indian Ambassador to Turkmenistan earlier this year. He presented his credentials to President Sapamurat Niyazov on May 18, 2005 at Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Prof. Kaushik, a distinguished scholar of international relations, had been with the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, for 25 years before he retired in 2001.

The Fulbright Academy is a non-profit membership-based organization that serves scientists, executives, and scholars worldwide. We receive organizational and financial support from institutional and individual members, selected Fulbright alumni groups and commissions, corporations, foundations, and other entities interested in developing an international network of leaders in science and technology. Our definition of science is quite broad -- it includes social, natural and life sciences as well as disciplines/professions that require or use scientific knowledge. We are not affiliated with the US State Department, the US Fulbright Association or the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

FAST uses the expertise of our network of Fulbright alumni and other leaders in science to address critical problems in education, scientific innovation and economic development. We interact with thousands of Fulbrighters and scientists around the world.

Some of our recently renewed members are: Dr. Anthony Beris in the chemical engineering department at the University of Delaware ••• Dr. Robert Brent, professor of economics at Fordham University ••• Mrs. Harriet Fulbright ••• Dr. Tom Gionis at the American Board of Healthcare Law and Medicine ••• Dr. Carol Hoskins at the NYU - Steinhardt School of Education ••• Dr. Rahul Ray, head of the department of bioorganic chemistry at the Boston University School of Medicine ••• Dr. Paul Robilliard of World Water Watch ••• Dr. Laura Rodgers, associate professor of nursing at College of Saint Benedict ••• Dr. Robert Wei, associate professor of Chemistry at Cleveland State University.

Academy projects are funded by contracts, grants, sponsorships, and donations from those who share our mission. Membership income is an important part of our annual budget; if you or your institution is not a member, please join today. Individual memberships start at $15, and institutional/corporate memberships start at $250.