Each year, the U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program sends 800 scholars and professionals to more than 140 countries to lecture or conduct research in a variety of academic and professional fields. This year, six Rutgers faculty members – two each from the New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden campuses – were named to the program. Two faculty members – Carolyn Anderson Brown, Department of History, School of Arts and Sciences; and James E. Katz, of the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies – were named Fulbright Distinguished Chairs. Chair appointments, viewed as among the most prestigious awards in the Fulbright Scholar Program, comprise approximately 40 lecturing and research awards ranging from three to 12 months.

More than 44,000 U.S. faculty and professionals have participated in the Fulbright program. Another 46,100 foreign academics and professionals have conducted research or taught in U.S. universities as Fulbright Visiting Scholars.

Carolyn Anderson Brown

Associate Professor, Department of History, School of Arts and Sciences

Hometown: New York City

Education: Ph.D. History, Columbia University; Master’s in International Affairs, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Fulbright Distinguished Chair: Grant at the Harriet Tubman Institute for the Global Migrations of African People, and the history department at York University, Canada.

Purpose: I am working to document the memory of slavery in the Igbo areas of southeastern Nigeria with Paul Lovejoy, Canada Research Chair on the African Diaspora and director of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples. I am processing videotaped interviews from an oral history project, “Memories of Pain and Sorrow,” that include rare personal testimonies, rituals, and tours of slave markets. Working with the institute’s innovative technical unit, I plan to produce a searchable database for wider distribution.

Long-term professional goals: My Fulbright will be the first phase of Rutgers' collaboration with Dr. Lovejoy’s newly funded project “Slavery, Memory, Citizenship,” a seven-year multi-million dollar project. The project features an international team of scholars who will examine the global migrations of African peoples, from the 15th century to the present, comparing historic patterns of slavery. The results will inform current public policy on issues arising from the persistence of slavery and racism into the 21st century.

What inspires me: The memory of slavery is an important dimension of African-American identity and historical experience. Often scholars assume that this would not be the case in Africa. We realize that we don't really know enough about how Africa communities, who lost their people and have processed this ‘loss’ in their historical memory. I want to correct this by helping to document, through interviews, the ways that people in southeastern Nigeria remember this today.

James E. Katz

Director, Center for Mobile Communication Studies; chair of the Department of Communication; School of Communication, Information and Library Science

Hometown: Morristown

Education: M.A. and Ph.D., Rutgers University

Teaching and research honors: Mellon Foundation Scholar award, the Communication and Digital Media ( COMDIGMED) award from the University of Erfurt, and the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Society for the Social Study of Mobile Communication.

Fulbright Distinguished Chair: “Understanding the History of 20th-Century Communications and its Relevance to Today's World” (Vercelli Chair) at the University of Eastern Piedmont Amedeo Avogadro, Vercelli, Italy, from April 2009- une 2009

Purpose: I will be lecturing at the university, which though once part of the University of Turin (founded in 1404), became independent in 1998 and now has an enrollment of about 18,000, on how communication technology affects social relationships.

What the Fulbright means to me: This recognition symbolizes the importance of communication in daily life. The award is a means to promote mutual understanding among members of the international academic community. The award also advances Rutgers’ efforts to expand its presence in the global arena.

Long-term professional goals: To help develop high quality studies of how communication affects society, I would like to foster a stronger understanding of the connection between technology and society.

What inspires me: I’ve had the privilege of learning from and working with truly great scholars at Rutgers. Their dedication has set an example that I try to emulate with my own students, be they here or abroad.

Myroslava T. Znayenko

Associate Professor Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures (CML) Department, Faculty of Arts and Sciences-Newark; and co-director, Central and Eastern European Studies (CEES) Program

Hometown: New York City

Education: B.A., Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of California, Berkeley; M.A., Russian Area Studies, Yale University; M.S., Library Science, Columbia University; Ph.D., Slavic Civilizations, Languages and Literatures, Columbia University

Teaching honors: Charles Pine Outstanding Teacher Award, Rutgers-Newark Alumni Association

Fulbright research project: At National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Institute of Literature, Kyiv, Ukraine, through June 2009.

Purpose: To reassess the significance of the revolutionary and democratic ideals that emanated from Western Europe - via Poland - to Ukraine and left an indelible mark on the ideology and rise of Taras Shevchenko as the major Ukrainian literary and cultural figure of the nineteenth century.

What the Fulbright means to me: I am honored to represent Rutgers University as a scholar and teacher on an international level and to participate, with other American scholars, in building bridges to other cultures.

Long-term professional goals: To extend my efforts, upon my return, to strengthen the CEES program by raising funds to further study Ukrainian and Polish literature/culture. Under the auspices of the CML department, co-chair Alex Motyl and I would like to establish two special funds, one for Ukrainian and one for Polish studies, to bring future scholars and students from Ukraine and Poland to Rutgers-Newark as visiting or teaching scholars. We would like to initiate fund-raising campaigns within both the Polish and Ukrainian communities next fall for teaching programs.

What I hope to give back to my hosts: I intend to share my research by lecturing and participating in discussions and scholarly conferences, both in Kyiv and in other cities of Ukraine. I intend to reach out especially to the younger generation of Ukrainian scholars, and to students, introducing them to modern methodological approaches and to viewing major literary figures in a more comparative and universal context.

Daniel H. Shain

Associate Professor of Biology, Camden

Hometown: Pennsville (originally from Lexington, Kentucky)

Education: Ph.D., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Colorado State University; MS, Biochemistry, University of New Hampshire

Fulbright research project: “Cocoon Production in Giant Earthworms” at the National Research Institute for Amazonia, Manaus, Brazil

Purpose: Segmented worms (annelids including earthworms and leeches) secrete protective egg cases, or cocoons, for developing offspring. I have studied the process of cocoon secretion in smaller worms and found the cocoon itself displays remarkable potential as a biomaterial (e.g., thermal and chemical resistance). To investigate reproductive processes in a giant worm, in this case with specimens up to seven feet in length, represents a real opportunity to learn more about the mechanisms of secretion as well as the biophysical properties of the cocoon. It also helps to link researchers in the Brazilian Amazon with U.S. institutions, with potential impacts related to agriculture, eco-toxicology and biomaterials science.

Long-term professional goals: This Fulbright is a first step towards establishing a foundation for the long-term study of giant earthworms, not only in Brazil but also in other countries including Australia and China. As no one has formally pursued the basic biology of giant worms, my long-term goal is to advance our knowledge of the evolution, reproductive biology and biomaterials potential of these curious animals.

What inspires me: I am inspired by evolutionary oddities and the mechanisms/selective pressures by which organisms adapt. The Brazilian giant earthworm is particularly puzzling: it thrives in a nutrient poor environment that is very difficult to navigate through (the soil is essentially dense clay). In fact, conventional wisdom would predict the presence of very small worms here in the Brazilian Amazon, yet it is home to some of the largest worms in the world.

G. Alan Tarr

Professor of Political Science, Camden

Hometown :Camden

Education: Ph.D., MA, Political Science, University of Chicago

Fulbright research project: “Subnational Constitutions and Federalism” at the University of Ottawa, Canada

Purpose: My Fulbright is a research grant, so I am doing research on comparative federalism, which again highlights similarities and differences with American understandings and approaches. Over the next two months, I will be giving talks based on my research at McGill University in Montreal, the University of Toronto, and Queen’s University in Kingston, as well as meeting with officials from the Quebec provincial government.

What the Fulbright means to me: Coming to Ottawa as a Fulbright scholar has broadened my perspective on a whole range of issues. For example, I recently attended a meeting on homelessness in Canada that discussed various governmental and non-governmental approaches in Canada and got some ideas about strategies that might be helpful in the United States as well. Also, by talking with colleagues and others, I am getting an earful about how Canadians view American politics and the United States more generally. Overall, I think that my experience will make me a better teacher and a better scholar when I return to Rutgers.

Seung-chan Choi

Professor and chair, Department of Marketing, Rutgers Business School–Newark and New Brunswick

Hometown: Edison

Education: MBA, Michigan State University; Ph.D., The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Fulbright research project: "Incentive for Information Sharing in the Pharmaceutical

Industry" at the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Seoul, Korea, from July 2008- anuary 2009

Purpose: Lecturing MBA classes and collaborating research with the KAIST faculty.

What the Fulbright means to me: It is very fulfilling to represent the U.S. as a scholar in a country in which I grew up. Moreover, Korea is among the most advanced countries with respect to information system infrastructure, which provides a fertile environment for my proposed research agenda of information sharing.

Long term professional goals: To become a prominent scholar in the area of channels of distribution in marketing.

What inspires me: Reading a simple but brilliant model/explanation that provides insights into more complex events in both human behavior and natural phenomenon.