News Assistant Professor and Two Doctoral Candidates Awarded Fulbright-Hays Grants | Assistant Professor and Two Doctoral Candidates Awarded Fulbright-Hays Grants |
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| Friday, 16 May 2008 | |
 One faculty member and two doctoral candidates from The Ohio State University have been awarded the prestigious Fulbright-Hays grant by the U.S. Department of Education. Morgan Liu, an assistant professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, is the recipient of the Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad grant, and students Michael Ewers from the Department of Geography, and Mark Soderstrom from the Department History, are the recipients of the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grants.
These Fulbright-Hays grant awards represent over $120,000 in research funding for 2008-2009. There are only 25 faculty awards and 140 Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad awards given annually nationwide.
Liu, a cultural anthropologist, plans to travel to Kyrgyzstan for three months to conduct research on the theme of "Central Asian Islam and Post-Soviet Societal Transformation." Liu will examine the beliefs of Muslims in Central Asia about how Islam solves systemic societal problems. The fieldwork involves Uzbek language interviews with religious and community leaders, and observation of mosque life. Ewers will conduct research in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for 10 months, examining the role of highly-skilled, expatriate labor in the country’s efforts to transition beyond oil-based economic development. Ewers will study a number of diversification strategies which have been implemented since the 1970s in the UAE to understand how knowledge transfer from expatriate to local labor has occurred.
The Fulbright-Hays faculty award provides grants to fund research projects in other countries to help faculty members maintain and improve their area studies and foreign language skills. The Fulbright-Hays dissertation award provides funding for individual doctoral students to conduct research in other countries in modern foreign languages and area studies. The Office of International Affairs administers the Fulbright-Hays program for Ohio State. Visit Fulbright at Ohio State for more information about grant opportunities. |
Liu is only the second Ohio State faculty member to receive this highly competitive Fulbright-Hays grant since 2000. Both Ewers and Soderstrom are past recipients of the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship. Ewers received his FLAS award from the Middle East Studies Center, and Soderstrom received his FLAS award from the Center for Slavic and East European Studies.
Soderstrom will travel to Russia for 12 months to examine the transformation of Siberia from a peripheral colony into an "organic" part of Russia. His analysis will examine the transformation on individual, local and national levels through the eyes of Peter Slovtsov and Ivan Kalashnikov, Siberia’s first historian and novelist, respectively.