2021 Fulbright Alumni Ambassadors

nbastian.AlumniAmbassador@fulbrightmail.org

Nathaniel D. Bastian was a 2008 Fulbright U.S. Student in Engineering to the Netherlands. On his Fulbright, Bastian completed a Master's of Science degree in econometrics and operations research at Maastricht University.

For his thesis research, Bastian developed a stochastic, multiple criteria decision-support model and three-dimensional shortest-helicopter path algorithm to help optimize the U.S. Army's air ambulance system in Afghanistan. Upon completing his Fulbright, Bastian served as an aeromedical evacuation officer, which included a 12-month combat deployment to Afghanistan. After his deployment, Bastian completed a PhD in industrial engineering and operations research as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at Pennsylvania State University. He went on to work at the U.S. Army Human Resources Command, where he helped build the Army's talent management system and other business intelligence tools.

Bastian transitioned to the Army Cyber Institute (ACI) at West Point, where he led a portfolio of research applying data science, artificial intelligence (AI), and advanced analytics to cyber problems. Currently, Bastian serves as Chief AI Architect at the U.S. Department of Defense Joint AI Center, but he will soon return to the U.S. Military Academy to serve as the ACI's Chief Data Scientist. Bastian serves as an adjunct professor at several universities, and he has co-authored more than 50 journal and conference papers, several book chapters, and one textbook. He previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2011.

dbernstein.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

As a Fulbright U.S. Student to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, David Bernstein earned a MA in Entrepreneurship and Innovation with distinction from the University of Luxembourg. As part of his degree program, Bernstein interned at Silicon Luxembourg, a rapidly growing media and event planning startup designed to highlight the country's entrepreneurial spirit.

Upon returning to the United States, Bernstein received his MD with distinction in research and MBA from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and Simon Business School, respectively. During his time in Rochester, New York, he was elected by U.S. medical students as the National Chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges Organization of Student Representatives (AAMC OSR). Following his dual degree, Bernstein spent a year as a senior researcher in value-based healthcare at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School.

Currently, Bernstein is a PhD student at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands and an orthopedic surgery resident physician at the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program (HCORP), providing care to patients at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Boston Children's Hospital. To date, he has published more than 80 peer-reviewed manuscripts on innovative healthcare topics, and his research has been presented both nationally and internationally. Bernstein previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2017.

clarissa.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

As a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) at a secondary school in the state of Terengganu, Malaysia, Clarissa Davis shared her passion for world peace with students through art, panel discussions, and cultural exchange, including food, music, and film.

While on her Fulbright, she also worked with the Malaysian government to revise their English language curriculum. Clarissa spearheaded several initiatives to teach Malaysian students about American culture, including organizing a traveling tour of ETAs from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds to conduct school visits. The group spoke with more than 1,000 Malaysian students about American culture.

Prior to being a Fulbright ETA, Davis had studied Arabic in Tunisia on a Critical Language Scholarship. Following her Fulbright, Davis completed her MBA at EDHEC Business School in Nice, France and is currently a Strategy & Research Consultant at a global management consulting firm. Davis previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2010.

mdevries.AlumniAmbassador@fulbrightmail.org

As part of her PhD program, Maya deVries spent her Fulbright combining marine biology research with outreach efforts to bridge science and the local community. Her dissertation research at the University of California at Berkeley focused on determining food web links between key coral reef predators, mantis shrimp, and their myriad prey to understand the effect of habitat loss on food web structure.

While on her Fulbright, deVries worked closely with local communities, Fulbright alumni, the U.S. Embassy in Panama, and her affiliate institution to build an education organization called Cambio Creativo, which connects Panamanians to local research. After returning to the United States and completing her PhD, deVries was a postdoctoral fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where she researched environmental impacts on invertebrates.

Currently, deVries is an assistant professor in Marine Biology at San José State University, where she is working to inspire the next generation of marine scientists, conservationists, and educators. Her research focuses on understanding how diet and anatomy can help shape the ecology of ecosystems and how environmental change may alter these relationships. She further applies this knowledge to shellfish aquaculture to help secure global seafood supplies into the future. DeVries previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2012.

h.estill-varner.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

History Estill-Varner graduated with a BS degree in American Sign Language/English Interpreting and International Studies from the National Institute of the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Shortly after, she was a Fulbright U.S. Student to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. On her Fulbright, she collaborated with the Dominican Republic's National Deaf Association, as well as the National Interpreting Association, to research service deficiencies and contribute to the ongoing effort of establishing an interpreter training program. Upon completion of her research, she provided the interpreting association with recommendations that would enable interpreters to better serve and empower the Deaf community.

Currently, Estill-Varner serves as Discovering Deaf Worlds’(DDW) Co-Executive Director. Through her role, she provides project oversight and organizational development training and consulting to Deaf organizations in Asia and Latin America.

In addition to serving as DDW's Co-Executive Director, Estill-Varner is a nationally certified freelance interpreter in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia metro area, providing interpreting services for a variety of federal government agencies, community organizations, and local businesses. Estill-Varner previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2017.

jfreeman.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

Dr. Jonathan Freeman is a 2016 Fulbright U.S. Student to South Africa. In Johannesburg, he spent an academic year at the South African Research Chair (SARChl) in Local Histories, Present Realities at the University of the Witwatersrand.

While at Wits, he conducted archival research at the South African History Archive (SAHA) and at the Historical Papers Archive. His research on the cultural boycott against apartheid examined how protest music functioned as a popular initiative and response to apartheid. He was invited by the History Workshop Group, the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg, and Phomolong Secondary School in Tembisa, a township outside Johannesburg, to share his work on protest music and social activism.

In 2018, Freeman completed his PhD in American Studies from Purdue University. Currently, he is a P-Tech Industry program manager at IBM. In his current role, he drives student success via overseeing mentoring relationships between more than 100 IBMers and 150 students, and oversees internships, workplace learning, budgets, and operations. Freeman previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2018.

dheise.AlumniAmbassador@fulbrightmail.org

Diana Heise was a Fulbright U.S. Student in Performance Art to Mauritius. In collaboration with the local cultural heritage community, she produced projects that illuminated creative methods used to resist the oppressive legacies of colonialism in Mauritius. These modes included music, poetry and marronage, engaging the histories of these forms as well as their contemporary expressions.

This research-based practice resulted in films, immersive installations, photographs, performances, books, scholarly essays, and takeaways to engage audiences’ empathetic capacities to see difference as powerful and valorize human resilience.

Since completing her Fulbright, Heise has continued work on projects with her collaborators in-country. She is now a professor at the Kansas City Art Institute and serves as the Chair of the Photography and Filmmaking Department. Heise previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2014.

mjackson.AlumniAmbassador@fulbrightmail.org

Dr. M Jackson is a geographer, glaciologist, and science communicator exploring the intersections of societal transformation, glaciology, and climate change.

Jackson is a National Geographic Society Explorer, TED Fellow, and three-time Fulbright U.S. Student awardee including grants to Turkey (2011) and two Fulbright-National Science Foundation Arctic Research grants to Iceland (2015, 2018). Jackson holds a PhD in Geography, a MS from the University of Montana, serves as an Expert for National Geographic Expeditions, and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia. Jackson has worked for over a decade in the Arctic and Antarctic exploring changing climates and is an active public speaker.

Jackson is the author of multiple peer-reviewed articles, as well as the science books: The Secret Lives of Glaciers (2019), which explores the complex impacts of glacier change on communities along the southeastern coast of Iceland; and While Glaciers Slept: Being Human in a Time of Climate Change (2015), which weaves together the parallel stories of what happens when the climates of a family and a planet change. Jackson communicates science in film, television and social media, and currently lives outside of Eugene, Oregon. Jackson previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2017.

ejohnson.AlumniAmbassador@fulbrightmail.org

Emmanuel Johnson was the first Fulbrighter from North Carolina A&T State University. Johnson went to the United Kingdom, where he completed a MSc in Robotics at the University of Birmingham. While in the UK, he volunteered at a local middle school to help students struggling with math and science, through a non-profit called TEAMUP. Johnson also volunteered with the Amos Bursary to help young black men prepare for job interviews. In addition to community engagement, Emmanuel was the online platform director for the Global Scholars Network.      

Johnson is currently a PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on improving negotiation training by using Artificial Intelligence to provide personalized feedback. Outside of his PhD program, he is a software architect at the Silicon Valley YWCA, where he is building an online learning platform to help students in low-income communities gain access to personalized STEM learning materials.

Johnson also serves on the InSTEM committee of the National Science and Medal Foundation, a program geared towards increasing the number of underrepresented groups in STEM. He is the recipient of an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the 2017 New Brunswick Education Foundation Spirit Award for stewardship in the community, and the 2013 North Carolina A&T Outstanding Engineering Student Award. Johnson previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2016.

ajones.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

Arienne (Ari) Jones is a policy advisor at the Cook County State's Attorney's Office (CCSAO) in Chicago, Illinois, where she focuses on adult expungements, sentencing, clemency, and parole.

As a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) in Madrid, Spain, Jones was placed at a secondary bilingual institution. She taught a variety of topics, including detailed lessons on slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. Jones also facilitated Global Classrooms, a course targeting advanced students that encouraged the exploration of world issues through Model United Nations. When she was not in the classroom, Jones enjoyed tutoring students in English, participating in bilingual conversations, and exploring Spain and other European countries.

Jones graduated magna cum laude from Spelman College with her BA in History and a minor in Spanish. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Upon returning to the United States after her Fulbright, Jones earned her law degree from Tulane University Law School. After law school, Jones investigated housing discrimination claims in Louisiana, was a federal law clerk in Alabama, and worked on children's rights issues in Florida. Jones is licensed to practice law in Alabama, Illinois, and Florida. She previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2014.

ckruse.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

Cameron Kruse is a creative technologist with Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm, working on forward-learning Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects. He also works with National Geographic Explorer, making media and creating map-based storytelling experiences. Kruse was a Fulbright U.S. Student to India, where he studied the impact of the plant Moringa oleifera on compromised immune function, with a focus on HIV.

Motivated by his experience in India, Kruse started a career in technology trying to find ways to use technical skills to focus on the world around us and promote cross-cultural communication. Since his Fulbright, Kruse has had three National Geographic awards, worked with startups like biotechnology company 23andMe, won hackathons for the U.S. Department of State, contributed to government technology projects, and given a TEDx talk on the Case for Exploration.

Kruse is currently finishing work on his latest project focused on a Himalayan village forced to move due to climate change, as well as developing programs to drive the adoption of AI in government. Kruse previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2014.

klanderos.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

Kathya Maria Landeros is a Mexican-American photographer and educator. Influenced by her bi-cultural upbringing, her work of the past decade focuses on Latino communities and the exploration of history, migration, representation, and belonging.

With the support of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, she lived in central Mexico and photographed in three of the Mexican states with the highest rates of historic Mexico-U.S. migration, including Jalisco and Guanajuato where her parents emigrated from.

She earned a graduate degree in photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where she later taught as a visiting assistant professor from 2017-2020. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Art at Wellesley College.  

klin.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

While in South Korea, Kristine served as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA), working with elementary students at Jeungan Elementary School in Cheongju. During her Fulbright, she received a Fulbright Korea Alumni Foundation Community Grant to support and lead an English camp, which focused on improving students’ understanding of American culture and traditions through hands-on activities.

Outside of her teaching responsibilities, Lin volunteered at a local orphanage for children with disabilities, took Korean dance classes, and traveled to Seoul weekly to teach English to North Korean defector children and adults. Additionally, she participated in the Kim Dae Jung Peace Marathon, raising money and awareness for North Korean defectors in South Korea, and met with Richard Stengel, the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, as a representative of Fulbright Korea.

After her Fulbright, Lin remained in South Korea to lead a teaching workshop during the Fulbright Korea summer orientation. Since returning to the United States, Kristine earned a PsyD in School Psychology at St. John's University and returned to South Korea to complete her dissertation. Currently, Lin is a licensed clinical psychologist and works as a school psychologist at a middle school in Virginia. She often returns to South Korea to visit her Fulbright homestay family, with whom she has remained close. Lin previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2015.

smccargo.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

Shondrea McCargo served as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) in Malaysia. McCargo is an educator passionate about building bridges to wellbeing within diverse communities.

During her Fulbright, McCargo taught English lessons at a secondary school in Pahang, with an instructional emphasis on developing psychologically safe learning environments. Shondrea also coordinated weekly workshops and English camps focused on enhancing confidence, self-awareness, and expression through engagement with the literary and performing arts.   

As a first-generation college student introduced to international travel through Fulbright, Shondrea considers her experience as one of the most impactful opportunities of her life and attributes many of her resulting academic pursuits to the skills and confidence developed in the Fulbright Program. After her Fulbright, McCargo received an MA from the University of Pennsylvania in applied positive psychology and currently works as an assistant instructor for the program. McCargo lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where she also teaches elementary school and spends her free time working on her first book. She previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2017.

dmorales.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

Davíd Morales is from Kumeyaay territory - San Diego, California. His involvement in educational activism and international solidarity movements led him to serve as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Morales led classes and seminars at Universidad Laica Vicente Rocafuerte for undergraduate students on U.S. history and culture, focused on the perspective of Indigenous peoples and minoritized communities. Outside of his teaching duties, Morales volunteered with The National Secretariat for Higher Education, Sciences, Technology & Innovation of Ecuador and traveled to rural communities to raise awareness and provide access to higher education opportunities.

After Fulbright, Morales received his MA and teaching credential from Stanford University and worked as a high school teacher in San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco, California. During his time as a teacher, he organized exchanges for his students to places like Cuba and Puerto Rico.  

cramon.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

As a Fulbrighter in Spain, Cristobal Ramón studied Spanish immigration policy at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, focusing on the way the Spanish Constitutional Court shaped the rights of undocumented immigrants. He also volunteered with the Comisión Española de Ayuda al Refugiado (CEAR), Spain's oldest pro-immigrant and refugee organization.

Upon his return to the United States, Ramón enrolled in a MA in International Affairs program at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. Ramón subsequently worked for the National Immigration Forum and the Immigration Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, where he focused on improving the management of employment-based and humanitarian migration.

Ramón is currently an immigration policy consultant and works with a range of clients, including the Episcopal Church, FWD.us, the George W. Bush Institute, and the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. He previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2011.

vredhouse.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

Vince Redhouse received the Fulbright U.S. Student Anne Wexler Master's Award in Public Policy to Australia. Redhouse used his award to pursue a MPhil in Philosophy at the Australian National University. He wrote his thesis on political reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and settler colonial states.      

While in Australia, Redhouse served as research fellow at the University of Canberra's Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, as well as a teaching fellow at ANU's Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. Throughout his research, Redhouse was able to meet with Indigenous leaders across Australia and even spent time living in a remote Indigenous community.      

Following his Fulbright, Redhouse enrolled in law school to focus on becoming a better advocate for Indigenous peoples. He is currently enrolled in the Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy Program at the University of Arizona and will graduate in May 2021 with his juris doctor (JD) degree. After law school, Redhouse will work for a small firm that represents Indian tribes across the country. He previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2018.

sstaton.alumniambassador@fulbrightmail.org

Dr. Sarah Staton was a Fulbright U.S. Student in Chemistry to Ecuador. Throughout Ecuador's varied environments, she collected airborne proteins to help develop a non-invasive environmental health monitoring system. This low-tech method leveraged citizen science efforts to help measure environmental changes and successfully demonstrated greater spatial and temporal resolution than current satellite techniques. Staton's work resulted in a joint publication with her host institution, the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Returning to the United States, Dr. Staton completed her PhD in Bioanalytical Chemistry from Arizona State University and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Naval Research Laboratory. After experiencing firsthand the need for diplomacy and the power of science to foster communication, she transitioned into working with the U.S. Department of State, through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship.

Currently, Dr. Staton serves as the Deputy Director for the Office of Science and Technology Cooperation (STC) in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) at the U.S. Department of State. Dr. Staton remains focused on empowering science and technology innovators globally, especially women and underrepresented groups. She previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2012.

gtalley.AlumniAmbassador@fulbrightmail.org

Gwyneth Talley is anthropologist and educator in the School of Global Integrative Studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. As a Fulbright U.S. Student to Morocco, her research focused on human-animal relationships, specifically with women horseback riders in the traditional equestrian sport of tbourida. Talley traveled throughout rural and semi-rural areas interviewing and following women's troupes that compete against men's tbourida troupes.

While in Morocco, she volunteered at the American Fondouk in Fes, an equine charity hospital, to improve her Arabic and help the foreign veterinary students communicate with local donkey, mule, and horse owners. After returning from Fulbright, Talley continued her graduate work for another year before returning to Morocco for additional fieldwork.

In 2019, she finished her PhD in anthropology at University of California, Los Angeles. She has returned many times to Morocco as a National Geographic Student Expeditions Leader and Expert. She now serves on the American Institute for Maghrib Studies Board and is working on her first book, tentatively titled Gunpowder Women, based on her Fulbright research. Talley previously served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador in 2017.