The prestigious Fulbright Program was created to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Fulbright is the world’s largest and most diverse international educational exchange program.
Department of Anthropology
Assistant professor of anthropology Edith Gonzalez, PhD, is a historical archaeologist whose research encompasses archaeological, ethnographic, and historical methodologies. She focuses on the culture of sugar production and experience of enslaved people in the English-speaking Caribbean during the pre-and post-emancipation periods, spanning from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Her fieldwork has taken her to archaeological sites in the Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, and archival sites in the United Kingdom. In addition, Gonzalez teaches in UB’s Critical Museum Studies Program. Gonzalez has received a U.S.-UK Fulbright Commission award to the British Library’s Eccles Centre for American Studies, where she will conduct archival research on the traditional ecological knowledge of Antigua and Barbuda.
Department of Urban and Regional Planning
A professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Daniel Hess, PhD, focuses his research on addressing interactions between housing, transportation, land use, and other public concerns. He develops new pathways for understanding the complex socio-economic and ethnic landscape of cities and spatial inequalities and is particularly interested in urban transit systems. He also explores equal access to resources from urban neighborhoods, focusing especially on the changes in LGBTQ+ neighborhoods over time. In 2023, Hess received his second Fulbright Scholar Award, for which he is visiting Tadeusz Kościuszko Cracow University of Technology in Poland, teaching urban planning and urban design courses, and continuing his research on the large, standardized apartment buildings built during the socialist era.
Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health
Associate professor of epidemiology and environmental health, Kasia Kordas, PhD, is an expert in environmental epidemiology. Her research focuses on the health effects of exposure to lead and other harmful chemicals, particularly in children. In 2023, Kordas has received a Distinguished Scholar Award, the most prestigious Fulbright appointment, to Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. She is visiting the Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment (RECETOX), an internationally recognized center in environmental chemistry and toxicology at Masaryk University where she will contribute to the development of new educational and research programs in environmental epidemiology and build research collaborations with RECETOX scientists.
Department of Information Science
An associate professor in the Department of Information Science, Amy VanScoy, PhD, studies professional work and practitioner thinking in library and information scienceparticularly in the area of reference and information service. She is interested in how practitioners’ thoughts, beliefs and values shape their practice, and also in the diffusion of formal theories into practice and the development of practitioners' informal theories. VanScoy has received a Fulbright Scholar Award to help develop a library and information science program at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. She will also mentor librarians currently working on their doctorates and provide lectures and workshops to support these students and encourage more librarians to become involved in research and pursue doctoral studies.
