Professors and associate professors from various disciplines have received awards for the 2021-22 year.
Texas Tech University is home to exceptional research and researchers alike. From innovative problem solving to the excellence on display in classrooms every day, Texas Tech boasts world-class educators.
This has been proven again in the 2021-22 academic year with the selection of six faculty to represent Texas Tech through The Fulbright U.S. Scholars program. The faculty members will spend anywhere from a few months to an entire year partnering with a foreign institution as they teach and complete research.
Since 1957, Texas Tech University has had 164 Fulbright Scholars selected from its faculty. These educators and researchers have visited 68 different countries around the world, acting as ambassadors not only for the U.S., but also for Texas Tech. They represent the highest values of Texas Tech: commitment to educating and empowering a diverse body, enabling innovative research and creative activities, and transforming lives and communities through strategic outreach and engaged scholarship.
The Fulbright U.S. Scholar program is the largest program of its kind in the nation. Academics, administrators and professionals can apply for opportunities to teach, advance their research and conduct professional projects in more than 135 countries. While Fulbright Awards are most popularly known for peace studies and teaching, Fulbright offers awards across countless disciplines.
The six faculty members selected for the 2021-22 year represent five departments on campus and will be traveling to six unique locations around the world.
The awardees are:
- Susan Larson, professor of Spanish in the Department of Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures, will travel to Spain to examine the evolution of domestic space there from 1939 to 1982.
- James Sheng, professor in the Bob L. Herd Department of Petroleum Engineering, will travel to Canada to research the feasibility and potential of oil recovery of carbon dioxide sequestration in oil reservoirs.
- Bernd Reiter, professor of Spanish in the Department of Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures, will travel to Brazil to work with the Xucuru Indians of the Cimbres reservation. Reiter's research focuses on democracy, race and decolonization.
- Jorge Salazar-Bravo, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, will travel to Bolivia to study the effects of wildfires and disease outbreaks on the Amazon basin ecosystems.
- Tanja Karp, associate professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, will travel to Namibia to teach science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to primary and secondary students.
- Mohamed Fokar, research associate professor in the Center for Biotechnology & Genomics, will travel to Morocco to research how date palms respond to Fusarium Oxysporum f. sp. Adbedinis. He hopes to develop steps toward more tolerant cultivars.
Five of the six faculty members have accepted core awards. Reiter accepted a distinguished chair award, a prestigious appointment reserved for scholars with more than seven years of experience in their field.
Fulbright programs are designed to forge lasting connections between the people of the U.S. and the people of other countries, counter misunderstandings and help people and nations work together toward common goals.
Texas Tech has two faculty liaisons who help other professionals on campus with the Fulbright application process. One is Salazar-Bravo, the other is Elizabeth Trejos-Castillo, C.R. Hutcheson professor of human development and family sciences in the College of Human Sciences and Provost Faculty Fellow.
“If you're interested in making a difference, spending some time abroad and serving as an ambassador of the U.S., Fulbright is a wonderful program to do that,” Salazar-Bravo said. “There is a lot going on with the program here at Texas Tech. I'm really happy to be a part of it.”
