Six UA Faculty Receive Fulbright Awards

Note: The story was updated May 26, 2023, to reflect the addition of Dr. Cory Callahan as a Fulbright award recipient.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Six University of Alabama faculty members have received Fulbright awards for educators to teach and research around the globe.

Dr. Deepa Das Acevedo, associate professor of law, received a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship and will travel to Bengaluru, India, where she will be a visiting faculty member at the National Law School of India University. She will teach and conduct fieldwork starting in January 2024.

Dr. Cory Callahan, associate professor of secondary social studies education with the College of Education, received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to collaborate with the faculty of education at the University of Prishtina in Kosovo. Callahan will teach undergraduate and graduate students in social studies methods courses, help develop a teacher education program that centers round civic education, and research wise-practices for promoting Civic Competence for International and Global Education. 

Dr. Ellen Csikai, professor of social work, received a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award and will travel to Murcia, Spain, to teach and conduct research at the Universidad de Murcia. She will teach in the areas of health and gerontology, specifically in palliative and end-of-life care in courses at all social work program levels, post-masters training, across campus and the community. Her research is expected to have implications for social work and gerontological practice as well as in policy advocacy to improve the lives of caregivers of seriously ill older adults in both the U.S. and Spain.

Dr. Prasad Gogineni, professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship Award and will travel to Kanpur, India, where he will conduct research to design and develop airborne sensors for large-scale characterization of snow and ice in the Himalayas in collaboration with faculty and students at the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur. The project will also involve collaboration with the Indian National Center for Polar and Oceans Research. Gogineni will travel to India in August.

Dr. Bryan Koronkiewicz, associate professor of Spanish linguistics, received a Fulbright Scholar Award and will travel to Murcia, Spain, to teach and research linguistics at the Universidad de Murcia. He will teach two graduate courses and assist with supervising graduate students on the use of linguistic methods in their research projects. His proposed research project is an experimental study on intra-sentential Spanish-English code-switching, the linguistic phenomenon that occurs when bilinguals mix elements from both of their languages in the same utterance.

Dr. Eric Weisbard, professor of American studies, received the Fulbright-Uppsala University Distinguished Scholar in American Studies and will travel to Uppsala, Sweden, where he will teach and research at Uppsala University. His courses will introduce Swedish undergraduates and graduate students to American studies as a field and to popular music studies as a part of American studies.

The UA Capstone International Center offers guidance to students and faculty on a variety of prestigious international awards including Fulbright Awards. The Capstone International Center website provides information for faculty members to learn about Fulbright awards as well as students interested in Fulbright and other awards.