Fulbright Reality Czech

While the Fulbright Program worldwide  is 75 years old this year, the Czech Fulbright program has just reached 30. The last months have not been easy for an exchange program. We were able to move many of our activities on-line but the core experience, the in-person exchange, is now finally getting back to speed. We hope to be able to observe the changes in our grantees when we meet them at the very beginning of the program and then at its end. Instead of parties and conferences, we asked many of you to become the Faces of Fulbright in our series of interviews made together with Vedator . Some of the other alumni were interviewed by Veronika Bednarova, our alumna, for the Fulbright Podcast .  Together with Lucie Žáčková, we prepared a detailed sociological survey where we asked our Czech and American alumni sets of questions relevant to their Fulbright experience.  Photo: Sociological survey report conducted for Fulbright by Lucie Žáčková, September 2021. (An image of a folder with Ful

Rachel Drew teaches English at Střední odborná škola (Practical High School) in Šumperk, located in North Moravia. The town is known as a gate into the Jeseníky Mountains, a less visited, yet breathtakingly beautiful natural paradise for hikers, bikers, skiers and anyone who enjoys a romantic getaway in an unspoiled landscape. Coming from Boston College with a degree in Elementary Education and Biology and a life-long passion for the environment, animals and nature, the school where students major in agriculture business, hotel management, ecology and environment or state administration was a logical fit. Besides regular English lessons at the school, Rachel also assists one of her colleagues in his biology class. In addition, she hosts a weekly English conversation class for her Czech colleagues. Since her arrival in August 2021, Rachel has smoothly adjusted to the Šumperk way of life. Outside of the school, she has joined a local volleyball club, she frequents ice hockey games to che

Dina Frutos-Bencze is an Associate Professor  of Economics and Business at Saint Anselm College, located in New Hampshire. This Fall semester, Dina has spent four months at the University of Hradec Králové as a Fulbright scholar and taught two classes, "Managerial Methods" and "Intro to Social Innovation." Together with her Czech colleagues, she has also strived to study the research and development cooperation patterns among various Central and Eastern European higher education institutions during the pandemic. She has been monitoring the impact of the current situation on job satisfaction, gender roles and organizational culture in the Czech Republic. Dina was born in Prague, but she first moved to Costa Rica together with her parents when she was three years old, and then to the U.S. Returning to the country of her roots for a longer period of time has given Dina an opportunity to finally explore and experience Czech culture and traditions. Even though she looks

Petra Urbanová v médiích často vystupuje jako česká forenzní antropoložka a vysvětluje rozdíly mezi svou prací a zobrazováním tohoto oboru ve filmech a v literatuře. Je docentkou a ředitelkou Ústavu antropologie na Masarykově univerzitě. Ve školním roce 2012/2013 strávila šest měsíců na North Carolina State University ve městě Raleigh jako stipendistka Fulbrightova programu. Obor forenzní antropologie vznikl právě v USA, a Petra Urbanová tak vysvětluje, že během svého pobytu mohla: "nasát atmosféru a vidět davy, které mají zájem o forenzní vědy. Bylo to důležité a utvrdilo mě to v tom, že dělám smysluplnou práci, co lidi zajímá." Málokoho napadnou praktická využití forenzní antropologie v každodenním životě. Petra Urbanová to ale vnímá jinak a pro příklad není třeba chodit daleko. Na jaře 2020, bezprostředně po vypuknutí pandemie, se její tým podílel na vývoji a testování respirátorů pro dospělé i pro děti. K výběru konkrétní velikosti stačila fotografie zájemce v mobilním te

Jiří Pánek se věnuje propojování virtuálního a hmatatelného geografického informačního systému v Centru pro geoprostorovou analýzu na North Carolina State University. Do půlmilionového města Raleigh v Severní Karolíně se v říjnu tohoto roku přestěhoval společně s manželkou Lenkou a dcerou Šarlotkou na šest měsíců. Svůj výjezd do USA plánoval asi dva roky předem. Jeho hlavní motivací byla příležitost naučit se nové věci, posunout se dál a přinést novinky na domácí Univerzitu Palackého v Olomouci. O významu dlouhodobého stipendijního pobytu v USA pro další akademickou práci i obecný kulturní nadhled dobře věděl od kolegů z oboru a mnoha přátel, kteří s Fulbrightovým stipendiem do USA vyjeli v minulosti. Jiří Pánek se o své dojmy ze života v USA pravidelně dělí na svém osobním blogu . V následujícím textu nabízí českým stipendistům svou aktuální zkušenost s nákupem auta.     Jedna z otázek, kterou řeší snad všichni Fulbrightisté před a během jejich pobytu, a to bez ohledu na to, jestli vy

Damir Dzhafarov is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at University of Connecticut. This Fall, Damir, together with his wife Veronica and their two children Zora and Nico, have spent three months in Prague, in the city of Damir's childhood. In the 1980s, while growing up in Prague with his Czech parents, Damir fell in love with computers, specifically with the model Commodore 64. Fast forward 40 years, today, Damir is exploring "New interactions of computability theory and combinatorics" at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University in Prague as a Fulbright Scholar. In his research, Damir is fascinated with the idea of pushing the border of what mathematicians have historically considered to be unsolvable. While Damir is eager to share the culture of his childhood and family roots with his wife and children, "...when it comes to academia, and doing research here, I feel almost as if I am in the Czech Republic for the first time," he says, hi