Fulbright Scholar Program

I thought it would be worthwhile early in these posts to provide a more in-depth description of what I’m doing in Norway and how I got here.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is a cultural exchange program that is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. It was established in 1946 and named after the founder, Senator J. William Fulbright. There are approximately 9000 Fulbright grants given each year. The Fulbright awards are given to students, either U.S. students (~2000) to visit other countries, or foreign students (~4000) visiting the U.S. The U.S. students are graduating college seniors, graduate students, or young professionals to research, study, or teach English abroad for one academic year. There are also U.S. Scholar awards (~800) that go to U.S. faculty members, scholars, and professionals to lecture and/or conduct research at institutions abroad. I am a part of this category of the Fulbright Program. Lastly, there are approximately 900 visiting scholar awards for international participants to conduct teaching and/or research at U.S. institutions.

I first started considering a Fulbright opportunity about 12 years ago when I was visiting with a friend who had recently come back from a Fulbright visit to Asia. It was 2-1/2 years ago that I came across the “Fulbright Distinguished Arctic Scholar to Norway” award as an option. The description of the opportunity hit all of my interests. I started an application in late summer 2023, including connecting with two host researchers in Bergen. I realized that I had started on my application too late for the mid-September deadline and I decided to wait another year. I returned to the application in summer 2024 and I submitted my application in mid-September. Overall, given the competitive nature of the awards, I viewed it as important to submit an application and I’ll work on polishing it in future years for resubmission.

The first, and most crucial, step in the application review is when it is sent to other professionals in the field for peer review to provide an assessment of the quality of the proposed activities. It was in mid-December 2024 when I learned that my application had passed the peer-review phase, which was huge news. My host institution in Bergen had to provide additional follow-up materials in January 2025 to verify that they were indeed setup and willing to host me and my project. I had a Zoom interview with Fulbright Norway in early February 2025. Things turned into a waiting game after that point. The process got complicated within the Fulbright Program, with the start of the new presidential administration, which resulted in additional hurdles that had to be cleared. Additionally, the job cuts that were happening across the government slowed the process. Finally, in late April 2025, I received notification that I received the award for the 2025-26 academic year.

I was able to define in my application my desired balance between teaching and research for my visit. I set the teaching at 25% and the research at 75%. In general, I am far more interested in the teaching experience where I can connect and interact with the students. However, my visit is limited to three months (less than a semester) and I know how consuming teaching prep can be for me that I didn’t want that aspect to dominate my visit. The teaching component for my visit will be in giving seminars and working with graduate students and early career researchers. My research project is working with colleagues at the NORCE (Norwegian Research Center) and the University of Bergen. The project is investigating extremes in temperature and precipitation for the Scandinavian Arctic and high-latitudes. The occurrence, trends, and associated atmospheric circulation patterns of the extremes in temperature and precipitation will be studied. I will be working with the host researchers in Bergen from early February to early May of this year.

I am starting to feel more and more acclimated for my three-plus month life in Norway. That has been the big accomplishment for this week. I flew to Oslo this evening for the Fulbright Norway mid-year seminar and ski retreat weekend. I am guessing that next week will be when I start making progress on the research project.