Fulbright Scholars Program awards 4 University researchers to continue research abroad

The U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board chose four UT staff and faculty members to receive awards from the Fulbright U.S. Scholars Program.

The four selected included postdoctoral fellow Julia York, professors Tia Madkins and Hannah Williams and South Asian studies librarian Mary Rader. They will each receive resources outlined by their respective awards to continue to work on their projects and research internationally. The program offers more than 400 awards each year in more than 135 countries.

York, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience, will travel to Chile with the Universidad Austral de Chile in Valdivia and the Chilean Antarctic Expedition to conduct research on the evolution of temperature sensation in groups of Antarctic fish and fish around the Chilean coastal waters. Her planned research period spans November 2023 to February 2024.

“It’s been my dream to go to Antarctica for quite a while now,” York said. “Because of the pandemic, it’s pretty difficult to go do new projects and get new projects funded to go do fieldwork in Antarctica. So I feel really lucky to be able to get this opportunity, and I’m going to try to make the most of it.”

Madkins, education professor of curriculum and instruction, received a Fulbright Flex Grant allowing her to conduct her research in Brazil for two visits of two-month periods with a 60-day return to the U.S. between them. She and her team at the REM-NE network at the Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz will be focusing on K-8 mathematics teaching and learning and implementing teachers’ equity-focused mathematics practices in Brazil. She will do research from July to September 2023 and November to January 2024.

“It was a dream come true,” Madkins said. “This was an important part of expanding my work and teacher education and mathematics education research. I’ve been wanting to expand my work outside of the U.S. and disrupt U.S.-centric notions about what teaching and learning should look like.”

Williamson, human development and family sciences assistant professor, was awarded the Fulbright Scholar Award for Spain to be a visiting scholar at the Universidad de Granada and collaborate with their faculty. They will work on validating Spanish language measures of data collection and publishing them so people in the field can start collecting data from Spanish-speaking participants and view how economic strain impacts relationships.

“I couldn’t believe that we’re going to Spain for the year,” Williamson said. “I came out of my office and was jumping up and down and (my daughter) said, that’s the most excited that she has ever seen me and was a little bit taken aback actually, and I told her that we’re moving to Spain.”

Rader, head of the Arts, Humanities and Global Studies Engagement Team and South Asian studies liaison librarian, received the Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship. She will go to India and find archival material not held in public spaces and collaboratively consider with the people holding those archives what they want done with them.

“Not everything is easily available in our institutions,” Rader said, “And that’s when the real fun comes from me as a librarian and an assistant to research to think through how we are going to find those kinds of things.”