Fulbright Scholar Award
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.
2024-25 Honorees
Shermali Gunawardena
Department of Biological Sciences
Shermali Gunawardena, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. An expert on the biology of neurodegenerative diseases, her research focuses on how proteins are transported from one end of neurons to the other, and how blockages and other defects in this transportation system may lead to the degeneration of neurons in diseases including Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s. Her overall goal is to identify targets/pathways that can be developed for therapeutics. In 2025, Gunawardena received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to travel to Sri Lanka to examine how meditation benefits patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. She will be affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Colombo, and conducting research, teaching and student mentoring activities.
A-Z
Barbara Prinari
Department of Mathematics
Barbara Prinari, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Mathematics. Her main area of research deals with nonlinear waves and integrable systems, and has focused on both the study of the integrability of certain nonlinear partial differential equations and their discretizations (differential-difference equations), as well as the properties of these equations and their solutions. Prinari’s research has also explored how mathematical models can be used for social and behavioral sciences including recently developing a dynamical systems model for triadic reciprocal determinism to study how a person experiences trauma or stress and the interplay with behavior and the perception of external environment. Through her Fulbright Scholar Award, she will travel to Greece to study nonlinear wave phenomena at the University of Ioannina.
Bina Ramamurthy
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Bina Ramamurthy, PhD, is a professor of teaching in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Ramamurthy is an expert on blockchain, cryptocurrency, digital assets, tokenization of assets and data-intensive computing. As the director of UB’s Blockchain ThinkLab, she has worked extensively on these emerging technologies and developed a successful series of massive open online courses on blockchain technology that has reached thousands of global learners. She is the author of “Blockchain in Action,” which introduces fundamental blockchain principles and teaches users to build blockchain-based decentralized applications. As a Fulbright Scholar, Ramamurthy will spend a semester in Austria as a visiting professor at St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, teaching and conducting research on blockchain-based systems.
Adrián Rodríguez-Riccelli
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Adrián Rodríguez-Riccelli, PhD, is an assistant professor of romance languages and literatures. His research and teaching combine quantitative variationist-sociolinguistics with cognitive linguistics, language typology, and formal syntax to analyze discourse and morphosyntactic variation in Spanish and Portuguese in Africa and the Americas, including Cabo-Verdean Creole, Spanish in the U.S.A. and in international dialectological perspective, and Afro-Hispanic varieties. For his Fulbright Scholar award in Cabo Verde, during the first semester, Rodriguez-Riccelli will offer course modules and workshops in sociolinguistics, Cabo-Verdean Creole linguistics, quantitative methods, and writing in this traditionally oral language using the official orthography. He will also carry out research documenting and analyzing sociolinguistic variation in Cabo-Verdean Creole and dialect variation throughout the archipelago, as well as traditional forms of folk knowledge and cultural expression.
Hua (Helen) Wang
Department of Communication
Hua (Helen) Wang, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Communication whose research focuses on using powerful storytelling, emerging technologies, and social networks to more effectively support disadvantaged communities worldwide in addressing issues such as sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence, and climate change. As an entertainment-education expert, she has worked with award-winning Hollywood and Bollywood production teams, social-impact game designers and computer and data scientists affiliated with the AI for Good initiative. As a Fulbright Scholar, Wang will travel to Norway to explore how lifelike, AI-enhanced MetaHumans can be used to tell compelling stories that promote environmental sustainability and inspire climate action.
Hao Zeng
Department of Physics
Hao Zeng, PhD, Moti Lal Rustgi Professor in the Department of Physics, is an internationally recognized leader in materials science and physics who has done pioneering work in magnetic nanoparticles, data storage and permanent magnets. A fellow of the American Physical Society, Zeng is a multidisciplinary experimentalist who works with both physics and chemistry to produce materials on the nanometer scale for various applications. Zeng has led research in novel magnetic nanostructures, 2D materials and chalcogenide semiconductors, which he will continue in Japan as a Fulbright Scholar. He has published over 150 articles, which have garnered approximately 25,000 citations, according to Google Scholar. He also holds two patents. Zeng’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy.