Students to study abroad on prestigious Fulbright awards

UH Mānoa PhD students Phillip Drake and Lance Nolde have each been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarship, according to the U.S. Department of State and J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

 

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government, and is designed to increase mutual understanding between Americans and the people of other countries. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. 

 

Drake and Nolde are two of over 1,500 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2010-11 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

 

Drake, who has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon, is originally from New York City and is seeking a PhD in English from UH Mānoa. His Fulbright research will involve going to East Java to study the impact of the Sidoarjo mud flow disaster from 2006 as it continues to affect the lives and welfare of over 50,000 victims.

 

Nolde, who is originally from Venture, California, received his Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University Channel Islands and is a PhD student in history at UH Mānoa. His research involved the Sama people in Eastern Indonesia, where he intends to travel and conduct interviews to learn about the history of the sea-faring group about which there are few written records. Nolde has also been selected for the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award along with UH Mānoa PhD student Pamela Runstead.

 

Runstead is a Hawai‘i resident who holds a bachelor’s degree from Augustana College in South Dakota and a master’s degree from Sheffield College in Great Britain. Her plans are to study victims of AIDS/HIV in Japan, and how decisions are made in that country about their treatment.

 

The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by Congress to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

 

For more information on the UH Mānoa Fulbright scholarship recipients, contact Kenneth A. Tokuno, associate dean of the Graduate Division, at (808) 956-8950 or tokuno@hawaii.edu. For more info on the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, see http://fulbright.state.gov or contact James A. Lawrence, Office of Academic Exchange Programs, at (202) 632-3241 or fulbright@state.gov.