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East Campus Library
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Voices of the Fulbright Program Support
Brian Augustine
Brian Augustine is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and has been actively involved in the creation and development of the interdisciplinary JMU Center for Materials Science since joining the faculty at JMU in 1997. In 2009, Brian was a Fulbright Lecture-Research Scholar in the School of Chemistry at the University in KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Brian taught a nanoscience lecture and laboratory class developed at JMU called "The Science of the Small: An Introduction to the Nanoworld" to third year chemistry and chemical technology students at UKZN. He worked closely with U.S. Consular staff in Durban in presenting guest lectures on nanotechnology at regional secondary schools and a science museum in Richards Bay, KZN. Brian also collaborated with inorganic chemist, Professor Orde Munro, and his graduate students at UKZN on imaging supramolecular ribbon structures using atomic force microscopy techniques at the National Centre for Nano-structured Materials at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria, South Africa. Brian was joined by his wife, Kristin and their three girls; Rachel, Rebekah and Ruth. In addition to South Africa, they were able to visit Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Brian and his daughter, Rachel, delivering children's books purchased at the Green Valley Bookfair using his book allowance through the Fulbright program to help start a library at the Bonginkosi Preschool in Edendale, KwaZulu-Natal.
Edward Brantmeier
Edward J. Brantmeier is the Assistant Director of the Center for Faculty Innovation and Assistant Professor in the Learning, Technology, and Leadership Education Department at James Madison University. In 2009, Ed was a Fulbright-Nehru lecturing scholar in India at the Malaviya Centre for Peace Research at Banaras Hindu University in the city of Varanasi. Ed co-taught a multicultural peace education course in the Malaviya Centre's post-graduate program. He co-developed a peace education course for their masters program in peace education and also co-organized an international conference on peace education and development, supported by a grant from the United States India Education Foundation. In addition to working with faculty and students at Banaras Hindu University, he guest lectured several times at other universities in both India and Nepal. Ed travelled with his wife Noorie and two sons--Noah and Ian.
Ed and colleagues at Varanasi, India school that demonstrates peace education in action. The children run a parliament to learn democratic literacy, a newspaper to advocate about children's issues, and a bank to learn financial literacy.
Lucy Bednar
Lucy Bednar is an Assistant Professor, in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication. Lucy was a Fulbright lecturer in American Literature at the university of Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, Macedonia, 1995-1996. While in Skopje, Dr. Bednar taught survey courses in American literature and special topic courses in the American Short Story and the Plays of Tennessee Williams. She also co-translated several short stories and organized a film series open to the public at the American Information Center. Lucy Bednar was also a Fulbright lecturer in American Culture at Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia, 2000-2002. At Comenius, Dr. Bednar taught classes in American Culture, including special topic classes in American Film and American Music. While in Slovakia, Dr. Bednar also translated a collection of Slovak fairy tales into English, Slovak Tales for Young and Old (Bolchazy-Carducci, 2000). She returned to Slovakia in 2009 as a Fulbright Senior Specialist to teach an undergraduate and a graduate class in Intercultural Communication. She is currently offering a Maymester program to Bratislava.
Richard Gaughran
Richard Gaughran is Assistant Professor of English at James Madison University, specializing in American Literature, Film Studies, and the Literature of Southeastern Europe. For three years, 1997-2000, Richard taught at the University of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, Macedonia, for the first two of those years as Senior Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies. In addition to his teaching assignment, he also struggled to learn the Macedonian language, eventually working on literary translations from Macedonian to English. These efforts culminated in an anthology of contemporary Macedonian short stories, Change of the System, co-edited by Zoran Anchevski and published in Macedonia in 2000. Other translations have since appeared in various publications. For most of his stay in Macedonia, Richard was accompanied by his wife, Dr. Lucy Bednar, herself a professor at JMU and an alumna of the Fulbright program.
Shane O'Hara
Shane O'Hara has choreographed and performed throughout the United States and Europe including concerts in Lisbon, Athens, Krakow, New York, Paris and Washington, D.C. O'Hara has received grants from the USIS/American Embassy, Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, and the Virginia Commission for the Arts as well as a Fulbright Fellowship to Portugal. Professor O'Hara was named the JMU CVPA Madison Scholar in 2010. Recent creative projects include choreographic commissions for the West Virginia Dance Company, Piedmont Virginia Community College, and Terra Dance Project from Richmond. O'Hara was director of the 2012 JMU Summer Contemporary Dance Intensive in London and is currently developing exchange residencies in China.
Photo courtesy of R. Finkelstein
Anthony Tongen
Anthony Tongen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Anthony is currently spending the 2012-2013 academic year as a Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholar at the University of Colima in the beautiful state of Colima in western Mexico. Anthony is making international research collaborations (see picture) with faculty in both Mexico and Argentina. His research involves modeling Chagas disease, which was called the 'New HIV/AIDS of the Americas' in a recent article in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (October 2012). Anthony is also teaching a Mathematical Modeling in Biology course to upper level mathematics majors, which is a course he has taught numerous times at James Madison University. Anthony is blessed to be accompanied by his wife Megan and three soon-to-be-fluent sons Micah, Paul, and Samuel (ages 8, 6, and 3, respectively).
Grace Wyngaard
James Madison University Professor Grace Wyngaard spent 3 months at the University of Sao Paulo, Brasil as a Fulbright Scholar in 2009. While there she co-taught a course with Professor Fernando Marques on Molecular Systematics. With Dr. Marques and her host, Professor Carlos da Rocha, she sampled both typical and strange "field sites" for freshwater and marine microcrustaceans: the deep sea, sand grains at the beach, temporary pools, reservoirs, leaf litter, tire tracks, and the gills and eyeballs of fish. They collected strange looking animals that resembled "little monsters" and whose evolutionary relationships among one another are highly debated in the field of aquatic zoology. Many of these "little monsters" are parasites of important fish stocks and understanding the relationships between parasitic and free-living forms may eventually aid in developing vaccines to ameliorate parasitism on fish stocks. Working alongside undergraduate and graduate students, Dr. Wyngaard obtained molecular data which she and her collaborators are using to construct a phylogenetic tree and will present at an International Congress in Korea. Dr. Wyngaard returns to Brasil every year to collect more data, refine the tree and enjoy the stimulating and fruitful collaborations with her Brasilian colleagues. This summer she is hosting a visit to JMU of a Brasilian graduate student in order to provide training in molecular techniques. Besides the University of Sao Paulo being described as the "Harvard of South America," its students are among the most motivated and hardworking students Dr. Wyngaard has encountered. Yet, they also have a lot of fun….even while unsuccessfully trying to teach Dr. Wyngaard how to dance the samba.
