The Fulbright program offers many opportunities abroad to high achieving students from all backgrounds. This year, the Fulbright US Student Program offered two South Carolina 2021 graduates full tuition for graduate study at universities in the United Kingdom, and a 2019 alumnus received an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) to Georgia. An additional two students were named alternates for their respective programs this spring -- 2018 graduate in public health (Paige Huffman) for a Study grant to the Netherlands and 2021 graduate in Russian (Kathryn Watson) for an ETA to Kyrgyzstan. A current junior won a 12-week summer research grant in Canada from the Fulbright Canada Mitacs-Globalink program. 

Payton Ramsey, a 2021 graduate and biological sciences major will begin her master’s in public health at Cardiff University in the fall with funding from the Fulbright UK Partnership award. A fellow UK Partnership award recipient, Ashley Brunson is 2021 graduate in biochemistry and molecular biology who will attend the University of Southampton to pursue her master’s in genomic medicine. Jacobs Shelbourne, ETA winner and 2019 UofSC English graduate, will teach English in Georgia with the hopes of pursuing a career in foreign service as a representative of the US in the South Caucasus. Rising South Carolina senior Gracie Leatherman, winner of the Fulbright Canada Mitacs-Globalink Research grant, will participate in a summer-long internship to expand her research expertise in environmental studies and geography.  

Why it matters:

• Celebrating its 75th year, the Fulbright US Student program emphasizes a commitment to fostering cultural understanding between US students and partner nations. 
• Fulbright emphasizes a commitment to growing cultural understanding between US students and partner nations.
• The Fulbright US Student Study awards support students pursuing graduate education by providing financial assistance for living and studying abroad.  
• The Fulbright US Student ETA program places native English speakers in classrooms around the world to supplement local English language instruction and serve as cultural ambassadors.
• The Fulbright Canada Mitacs-Globalink Research Internship supports supervised research across disciplines for up-and-coming researchers to explore their area of interest in Canada and encourages US students to return to Canada for graduate study.  

“We’re especially thrilled to be getting our first Fulbrights to the UK, a particularly competitive destination, and to be sending two such strong graduates in the health sciences,” says Jeff Persels, a long-standing faculty mentor to Fulbright applicants.

“This was a strange year for Fulbright applicants, given the uncertainty presented for travel abroad by Covid-19, as well as a record number of national Fulbright applicants, nearly 12% more than last year,” said Jennifer Bess, Director of National Fellowships.  “We are proud to see that UofSC will be represented in Fulbright programs around the world in 2021-2022.” 

UofSC was named a Fulbright US Student Top Producer for the grant year 2020-2021, a title won in large part due to the dedication of our Fulbright faculty mentors. National Fellowships and Scholar Programs would like to offer special thanks to the Fulbright committee for providing mentorship to students. The current committee includes faculty members Jeff Persels, Yvonne Ivory, Laura Kissel, Myriam Torres and Tom Vogt; our 2019-2020 top-producing committee also included Lucy Spence and Fred Myhrer. In addition to these advisors, NFSP would like to thank the 35 faculty and staff members who assisted with our campus evaluation committees this past September.