Academy member Dr. B.G. Unni of India has been working in the northeastern region of India for more than a decade, promoting the Fulbright program through outreach, mentoring programs, personal advice, and e-mails contacts. Dr. Unni currently serves as Deputy Director and Area Coordinator at the Regional Research Laboratory (RRL), Jorhat, Assam. The RRL is one of a group of laboratories funded by India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.

Dr. Cindy Van Dover (2004 Fulbright grantee) has been named director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory. The Lab is a unit of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. Located in Beaufort, NC, it offers a year-round curriculum for undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students as well as a full range of research, residential and teaching facilities. Van Dover specializes in the study of deep-sea hydrothermal vents and chemosynthetic communities. She had been on the faculty at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., since 1998.

In June, the American TV network PBS aired a documentary titled “The New Heroes,” which featured the lives and work of several alumni of United States government sponsored programs. Martin Fisher, a Fulbright alum to Kenya in 1985, co-founded the company ApproTEC (Appropriate Technology for Enterprise Creation). ApproTEC develops and markets new, low-cost technologies in Africa. These low-cost tools are bought by local entrepreneurs and have been used to establish some 35,000 new small businesses – thereby creating new jobs and new wealth. Because the tools are designed to be mass-produced locally and manually in Africa, they are profitable, affordable, durable, and easy to operate and maintain.

The documentary also featured a well-known Fulbrighter - Mohammad Yunus, a 1965 Fulbright alum from Bangladesh, who founded the Grameen Bank. With 1,417 branches, Grameen has provided services to some 4.4 million families in 51,000 villages, covering three quarters of all the villages in Bangladesh. The banking model has helped people lift themselves out of poverty in rural Bangladesh by providing them with credit without requiring collateral. Yunus developed his revolutionary micro-credit system with the belief that it would be a cost effective and scalable weapon to fight poverty. Today, more than 250 institutions in nearly 100 countries operate micro-credit programs based on the Grameen Bank model, while thousands of other micro-credit programs have emulated, adapted or been inspired by the Grameen Bank.

Pedro Obando, a newly elected Colombian Congressman and Fulbright alumnus, plans to secure more government funding for the Fulbright Commission in Colombia and to help Fulbright recruit scholars from rural areas and areas with marginalized populations. The lead editorial in the July 24 edition of El Tiempo calls on the Colombian Government to increase its funding for the Fulbright program in Colombia.

The new Nepalese parliament has formed a cabinet, called the Council of Ministers, which includes one Fulbrighter - Dr. Mangal Siddhi Manandhar, Minister of Education and Sports.

Dr. Harvey McMurray, Sr. (Fulbrighter to Uganda) recently organized several programs on court administration and cyber-crime for faculty and students at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) and a delegation of Ugandan criminal justice officials. Dr. McMurray is chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at NCCU. Dr. Chris Eskridge, the Executive Director of the American Society of Criminology, is considering a special workshop on criminology at the Fulbright Academy’s upcoming annual conference in Panama.

Our third annual New England Program will be on October 5 & 7 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Boston area has one of the highest concentrations of Fulbrighters, alumni and hosts in the world. Each fall, FAST organizes programs that help bring these scientists together. This year’s events will again coincide with the Ig Nobel Prize, a fun and humorous celebration of interesting and unique research – last years winners included the researchers who examined how fast people can swim in molasses and the brain activity of locusts as they watched clips from the movie “Star Wars.” And one prize went to the inventor of neuticals – artificial testicles for neutered dogs. The prize ceremony is on Thursday evening at Sanders Theatre at Harvard, and FAST is hosting a dinner prior to the ceremony. In addition, FAST is a lead sponsor for an informal reception after the Ig Nobel Prize Lectures. The public lectures are equally fun for the 300+ attendees. If you aren’t free on Thursday night, please join us on Saturday afternoon for some free educational entertainment. The lectures begin at 1:00 in MIT Building #10. The theater tickets can be reserved in advance through the Academy for $30, and each person pays for their own dinner. The lectures on Saturday are free. Call us at 1-866-F-BRIGHT to reserve your tickets.

Two Fulbright DVDs are now available for purchase through the Fulbright Academy. “Fulbright: The Man, The Mission & The Message” is a 60-minute biography about Senator Fulbright and his work. Produced for the J. William and Harriet Fulbright Center, it uses footage and interviews with the Senator and other leading political figures in the United States to explore Fulbright’s work on international affairs. The second DVD is a 30-minute documentary about the 2006 Fulbrighters in Science Conference in Berlin. With footage from the meeting, tours and programs and interviews with selected attendees, it tells the story of the Academy and its first major conference – 140 registered participants from 24 countries. The DVDs are $25 each, and both are available from the Academy – cash or credit card. Call us at 1-866-F-BRIGHT to order a DVD.

“Experiencing America: Through the eyes of visiting Fulbright scholars” was published last month. The book is a collection of stories written by Fulbrighters who were in the US during the 2005-06 academic year – students from Italy, Uganda, Pakistan, Russia, Cameroon, the Philippines, Malaysia, Austria, and the Netherlands. The book is edited by Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani and Omer Idrees. Excerpts can be seen at Amazon.com - it is available through them or through FAST for $15. Call us at 1-866-F-BRIGHT to order this book.

Note: FAST is working on a follow-up to this book, focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean. We are seeking essays from Fulbrighters from that region, or from Americans who went on a Fulbright to LA/C at any time during the past 60 years. Send us an email (info@FulbrightAcademy.org) for information on how to submit an essay. The book will be published next spring in conjunction with our conference in Panama.

“Fulbrighters and the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals” will be a major theme for the 2007 Fulbrighters in Science Conference in Panama. How can science & technology be applied to problems of international development – poverty, hunger, maternal health, AIDS, environmental sustainability, etc? In addition, we have several specialized workshops on the first day. One will focus on marine conservation and reefs, and a second workshop on criminology is likely. Additional workshops are also planned.

Our four-day conference will be held in Panama City on 1-4 March 2007. We will have keynote lectures, panel and roundtable discussions, two poster sessions and private tours of parks, scientific research stations, and the Panama Canal. Registration will be $400, with discounts of 20-40% for (1) early registration, (2) employees of institutional members, (3) students, and (4) participants from low- and middle-income countries. The rate at the conference hotel is approximately $90/night. Registration will open on October 1st.

Universities, corporations, non-profits, alumni groups, and other institutions may wish to reserve a space in the exhibit area. The fee ranges from $125 to $1,000, depending on the size and nature of the booth. Corporations, agencies and institutions are also assisting with the conference through sponsorships or in-kind services. Reservations for exhibit space are being accepted now.

The Conference hotel was designed by Edward Durell Stone. He and Senator Fulbright were born three years apart in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and they were childhood acquaintances. Some 45 years later, they worked together on the El Panama Hotel - see website for details.

If you would like to help with the planning or sponsor the conference, please contact Eric Howard at ehoward@FulbrightAcademy.org. Information on sponsorship can be found on the website. The conference language is English.

The Academy is pleased to be offering complimentary memberships to some three-dozen alumni from North Africa and the Middle East. During the past month, we have added new members from Jordan, Yemen, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Syria, Iraq, Gaza, and Egypt.

Additional recipients of the complimentary memberships will be chosen through one of four ways. (1) Alumni groups and the Fulbright program administrators may nominate individuals from the region. (2) US hosts of past and present visiting Fulbrighters from the region may nominate individuals from the region. (3) Friends of alumni may nominate them. (4) Fulbrighters can nominate themselves.

The purpose of these memberships is to help alumni from that region develop professional and personal ties with Fulbrighters in other parts of the world. Valid for two years, these memberships were made possible by a generous donation from a Fulbright Academy supporter.

If you would like to recommend a Fulbrighter from North Africa or the Middle East to become a member of the Fulbright Academy, please by send his/her name, email address and additional contact information to ehoward@FulbrightAcademy.org. You may nominate more than one person.

The Fulbright Academy is a non-profit membership-based organization that serves scientists, executives, and scholars worldwide. Our sponsors and supporters include institutional and individual members, Fulbright alumni groups and commissions, corporations/businesses, and foundations.

After three years of operation, the Fulbright Academy has a growing membership base. By joining the Academy, you will be supporting our work - our conferences, the study committees, and our Fulbright Forums. You will receive invitations to special events, and we also help members link up with other Fulbrighters in their respective fields. Individual memberships start at $60, with reduced rates available for students, retired individuals and those living in low- and middle-income countries.

Institutions in the US and elsewhere are collaborating with the Academy on several projects and programs. These collaborations typically are funded by a grant or contract from a foundation or agency. The first step is in this process typically is joining as an institutional member. Information on institutional memberships is available on our website.

The Fulbright Academy is not affiliated with the US State Department, the US Fulbright Association or the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. We are independently funded, and so your support is very important to us.

As a fellow grantee of the Fulbright program (Germany '89), I look forward to having you as a member and participant.

Sincerely,

Mr. Eric S. Howard, Executive Director