Cal Poly honored by State Department for notable number of Fulbright Award winners on staff
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. – With three faculty members selected for Fulbright Awards this academic year, Cal Poly has been recognized as one of the top producers of Fulbright Scholars nationwide.
The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs publishes the distinction annually and this is the fifth time in the last ten years that Cal Poly has made the list of top institutions of higher learning featuring Fulbright awardees on staff.
Since 1946, the Fulbright Program has served as the United States' flagship international academic exchange program and today, more than 400 individual awards are granted to U.S. citizens to teach, conduct research, and implement professional projects in more than 135 different countries.
The three Cal Poly faculty members selected for Fulbright awards for the 2024-2025 academic year are Paul Anderson, Jean Davidson, and Sara Lopus.
Professor Anderson is a professor of computer science and is at the Universidad de Murcia in Spain where he is developing an artificial intelligence-powered program to improve the diagnosis and care of chronic lower back pain.
"There’s no blood test to diagnose chronic pain; it’s all based on the language patients use to describe their pain," detailed Anderson. "AI [Artificial Intelligence] can help us analyze and improve these language-based interactions, resulting in more personalized care and reduced disparities in treatment."
A key part of his work is the impact of chronic pain, especially lower back pain, which is notably difficult to diagnose and heavily relies on patients explaining their ailments in their own words.
"This is where we can look at AI as a superpower, helping researchers identify patterns and data that doctors might miss," explained Anderson about his research. "AI can process vast amounts of information quickly, providing valuable insights that lead to better diagnoses and treatment plans."
Dr. Jean Davidson is an assistant professor of biological sciences at Cal Poly.
She traveled to Northern Iceland to partner with the University of Akureyri where she will be teaching an Iceland-specific bioinformatics class as well as researching the genomes of bacteria found in local lichen.
"I hope our students and theirs use this data and to work on academic journal papers together," shared Davidson. "Cal Poly and Akureyri will forever, hopefully, make connections and send students back and forth to share in research and learn from each other."
Dr. Sara Lopus is an associate professor of social sciences who specializes in family demography on a global scale.
She will be joining family demographers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil's third-largest metropolitan area, where she hopes to analyze family investment data and its impact on childhood outcomes in Brazil and compare it to existing data from other parts of the continent.
"Even when analyzing publicly available datasets, traveling to the country where the data were collected can be so educational," detailed Lopus. "Travel provides context for understanding the variables I analyze and adds vibrancy and flavor that makes my work feel multi-dimensional."
The Cal Poly International Center offers resources for students applying to a wide variety of grants to further their research including the U.S. Fulbright Student Program. Click here to learn more.
