Five members of Emory University’s faculty and staff have been named 2023-24 Fulbright U.S. Scholars. Maren Jill Adams, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim, Charlie Hammons, Nikhila Raol and Tiphanie Yanique are among more than 800 U.S. citizens who will teach or conduct research abroad during the 2023-24 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.
“The Fulbright Program exemplifies Emory’s mission to create, preserve, teach and apply knowledge in the service of humanity,” says Ravi V. Bellamkonda, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “These Emory scholars will embark on a transformative journey, nurturing intellectual curiosity, bridging cultural divides and fostering global collaboration and empathy. We are proud of the outstanding scholars who were selected for this prestigious opportunity, and look forward to the many ways they will enrich the Emory community by sharing their insights and experiences upon their return.”
Fulbright scholars engage in cutting-edge research and expand their professional networks, often continuing existing research collaborations and laying the groundwork for forging future partnerships between institutions. Upon returning to their home countries, institutions, labs and classrooms, they share their stories and often become active supporters of international exchange, inviting foreign scholars to campus and encouraging colleagues and students to go abroad.
Since its inception in 1946, the Fulbright Scholar Program has provided more than 400,000 individuals from more than 160 countries the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to international problems.
Meet Emory’s 2023-24 Fulbright Scholars
Maren Jill Adams
Adams, associate teaching professor of interdisciplinary studies and director of global learning at Oxford College, will travel to Japan to work at Hiroshima University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. There, she’ll teach as part of the graduate International Peace and Co-Existence Program as well as the undergraduate Integrated Global Studies program.
Adams will build on her current project, “New Technologies of Transmission in Post-Bomb Japan,” while at Hiroshima University. The project focuses on a variety of new techniques and technologies of transgenerational memory — memories that cross generations while also transforming them — and will inform her work within courses for graduate and undergraduate students in Hiroshima and engagement with community partners who are also committed to peace and education.
“Overall, I am trying to understand how peace educators are working to preserve wartime memories to reach new and wider audiences,” Adams says. “I focus on multinational memories of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the postwar atomic aftermath and current concerns about nuclear proliferation, bringing together U.S.- and Japan-based university students for dialogue and collaboration on these enduring issues affecting both nations and their neighbors.”
Adams is most looking forward to being immersed in the community within Hiroshima while doing this work. “In my teaching, research and community engagement, I have the opportunity to learn about, experience and contribute to the transmission project from multiple angles,” she says. “Fulbright has already opened the door to so many invigorating new connections!”
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim
An-Naim, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law Emeritus, associate professor in Emory College of Arts and Sciences and senior fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, will travel to Ethiopia. An-Naim proposed going to Sudan when submitting his application, but the Fulbright Scholar Program asked him to identify another sub-Saharan country due to Sudan’s current severe strife.
“I am originally from Sudan, where I received all my education in public schools until I graduated in law from the University of Khartoum in 1970. When I finished graduate studies in the U.K. in 1976, I returned to Sudan to teach until 1985, when I had to leave for political reasons,” he explains. “Taking my Fulbright fellowship in Sudan would have been a highly significant, personal ‘homecoming,’ as the American expression goes. Ironically, that personal sense of returning home has been ‘postponed’ by the similar conflicts and violence that drove me out of Sudan into exile back in 1985.”
During An-Naim’s project, he will update, revise and publish a second edition of his “Sudanese Criminal Law” textbook. Written in Arabic, the first edition was published in 1986. He will also be teaching during the 2023-24 academic year. While the project was untitled during application submission, An-Naim says he always thought of it as “What I owe for my privilege.”
“As I explain in my autobiographical reflections,” he says, “I am trying to ‘pay back’ some of the debt I owe for the privilege of education and opportunities I have received throughout my life.”
Charlie Hammons
Hammons, senior associate director for client services within Emory International Student and Scholar Services, will participate in the South Korea International Education Administrators Program. He will spend one week in Seoul before traveling to new cities each day — including Jeonju, Daejeon, Daegu and Busan — before returning to Seoul to wrap up the program.
The program hosts a cohort of nine educators from around the U.S. who work with international students at their institutions. They will meet with representatives of 15 colleges and universities throughout Korea and participate in several events.
Hammons explains three program objectives:
- To give participants an opportunity to discuss areas of importance in international education in Korea, in the U.S., and in both countries so they can learn and share with each other.
- To provide opportunities to learn about Korean culture and history.
- To allow the cohort to meet with counterparts in Korean higher education and deepen personal and professional ties.
“Facilitating cultural exchange is foundational to international education and the reason I chose to work in this field,” Hammons says. “Emory has substantial ties to Fulbright, as well as with many institutions and researchers in Korea, dating back decades. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this tradition by representing Emory, Fulbright and the United States, as well as learn more about Korea’s fascinating history and culture.”
Nikhila Raol
Raol is an associate professor in the Department of Otolaryngology in the Emory School of Medicine. During her time as a Fulbright Scholar, she will travel to Hyderabad, Telangana, India, to work at the Niloufer Hospital for Women and Children, which is affiliated with Osmania Medical College. Her project, entitled “Investigating the role of ankyloglossia in breastfeeding difficulties,” will evaluate the role of ankyloglossia (also known as tongue tie) on successful breastfeeding maintenance in Telangana, where breastfeeding maintenance rates at six months are high but rates of tongue tip clipping are much lower.
“I am most excited about the opportunity to immerse myself in a foreign health care system and truly learn from them, with the hope that I can help shift the paradigm in the management of these infants,” Raol says.
Raol’s work will include observational field study and interviews with mothers and clinicians who work with mother-infant dyads. In addition to contributing to scholarship on strategies for successful breastfeeding maintenance, Fulbright’s support for this research will contribute to the development of evidence-based breastfeeding recommendations worldwide and also allow Raol to learn from, contribute to and build long-lasting relationships at Osmania Medical College.
Tiphanie Yanique
Yanique is a professor of English and creative writing in Emory College and an award-winning novelist, poet, essayist and short story writer. She was selected for the UK Fulbright – British Virgin Islands Scholar Award at H. Lavity Stoutt Community College (HLSCC). There, Yanique will conduct research and teach in connection with her project titled, “Writing and Reading the Body in the BVI.”
“I am most excited about doing research for two intersected projects I am working on,” Yanique says. “The first is a collection of essays on the way Black and Brown bodies stay safe and feel joy in the outside world. This project looks at the Black Lives Matter protests in Atlanta, Carnival in the Carribbean and other spaces that impact our physical and mental health.
“The second is an ongoing decolonial project I do on archives with a group I am part of, called the Virgin Islands Studies Collective. Our next collective work is going to be on the natural elements. I will be focused on water, and will be using the Caribbean Sea, which surrounds and serves as pathways between the different Virgin Islands.”
Learn more about applying for Fulbright grants
Interested in applying for future Fulbright awards? Learn more here:
- Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship, open to seniors and recent graduates
- Fulbright Research / Study Grant, open to seniors and recent graduates who have not yet started a graduate program
- Fulbrights and other external fellowships and grants through Laney Graduate School
- Fulbright Scholar resources for faculty