Project/Thesis Title:  Neurological Effects of Music on Memory: A Comparative Analysis of Alzheimer’s Disease and Korsakoff Syndrome

Project Summary: Every 3 seconds, somewhere in the world, a clinician diagnoses someone with dementia, immediately changing the lives of the individual and their loved ones. Recent research on dementia highlights a new option for treatment. Music. My project, in collaboration with Dr. Hervé Platel and his colleagues at the lab, Neuroimagerie de la Mémoire Humaine (NIMH), at the Université de Caen-Normandie, will directly compare the effects of music on the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s Disease or Korsakoff Syndrome (2 different types of dementia). The lab uses state of the art neuroimaging to enable the rapid visualization of activated brain areas. As a cellist and aspiring physician, this project combines and aligns with my passions in life. I look forward to elucidating the power of music within the field of medicine.

Project/Thesis Title: Reimagining the Black Identity

Project Summary: I will be photographing the Black and African diaspora using a photographic process invented in the 1850’s called Collodion Wet-plate. I will be supplementing my photographic work with research at the International Center for Research on Slaves and Post-Slavery working closely with the head of the organization, Myriam Cottias. My home-base will be at The Fondation des Etats-Unis, a private student residence and cultural center where I will have a studio and the opportunity to attend cultural events and be immersed in a community of artists and professionals.

Project Title: Masters in Urban Planning at Université Grenoble Alpes

Project Summary: In order to build on my undergraduate education in International Development, French and Urban Studies, I am pursuing my Masters in Urban Planning at Université Grenoble Alpes. My career so far has been at the intersection of community development, urban economic research and entrepreneurship with applications towards equity and inclusion. I am pursuing this degree with the ultimate goal of researching informalities in emerging cities and using this research to design social impact programs. I will apply my background in microfinance to analyze how communities create sustainable livelihoods within informal settlements and explore what resources are necessary to achieve financial stability and mobility.

Project/Thesis Title: Social Inclusion within the EU      

Project Summary: The electoral surge of the Front National in the 2017 French presidential elections and the ongoing migration crisis in Europe are evidence of a significant transformation occurring in Europe today.  I propose to focus my thesis on nationalist-populist trends as well as migrations within European Union (EU) countries while pursuing a Master in European Affairs at Sciences Po, Paris.  Furthermore, I will develop a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) for universities and associations, as well as community outreach strategies to educate others on the processes of social inclusion for refugees.  In short, I will combine academic pursuits with community involvement to better face the challenges surrounding refugee integration within Europe.

Project/Thesis Title: Between People: The Living History of Musique Traditionnelle in Northwestern Bretagne

Project Summary: In the Finistère department of Bretagne, traditional music serves as a space wherein the endangered Breton language and concepts of regional identity gain new definitions. Oral transmission, integral to the passage of music from one generation to the next, thrives here. Through observation and interview, writer Melanie Curran will create a work of creative non-fiction to capture how the musique traditionelle community exemplifies broader trends of traditional revival during the digital age.

Project/Thesis Title: M.A. in fundamental & applied research in the language sciences

Project Summary: In the first portion of the Master’s program, students engage with  several disciplines of linguistics and different approaches to academic research. Some of these domains include lexicography, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and computational research. In the second year, students formulate and pursue their dissertation project, which often serves as a precursor to doctoral studies in language research. Zac hopes to work with faculty in the Institute for the Digital Humanities on campus and to continue to employ the methodological tools he’s learned while at Pitt. He is particularly interested in sociolinguistics, and how cultural groups, histories, and dynamics are expressed through language use.

Project/Thesis Title: Consequences of River Intermittency for Microbial Greenhouse Gas Production              

Project Summary:  Across the globe, but notably in Mediterranean climates, the impact of changing global temperatures is already affecting the hydrology, ecology and biogeochemistry of ecosystems. Consequently, rising temperatures will alter the timing and magnitude of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from intermittent rivers (irregular, non-perennial surface flow) as they cycle between wet and dry periods. The dry-wet cycle impacts microbial assemblage structure and function, resulting in carbon loss through GHG emissions. This project will close a timely knowledge gap by linking GHG emissions to microbial communities over the dry-wet cycle of intermittent rivers to functionally understand the hydrologic controls on microbial GHG emissions.

Project/ Thesis Title: “Virtual Reality Secondary Language Education” a.k.a. “Project Second Soul”

Project Summary: The primary goal of this project is to create virtual reality simulations using 360 degree video for the purpose of studying the French language. The secondary goal is to establish a research metric to measure the effectiveness of interactive media in language education vs traditional passive media. After completion, the project will be distributed to French teachers and French education institutions for the purposes of early testing, and data collection. This data will inform the project’s future development, with the ultimate goal of creating a fully immersive virtual reality curriculum that aims to provide an authentic framework for the practice and improvement of foreign students’ French language abilities.
 

Project/Thesis Title: The Art of Science: Investigation and Practice of French Scientific Drawing Techniques

Project Summary: Mattias will study eighteenth-century techniques used in traditional natural history illustrations on vellum, working with scientific illustrators at the Paris Natural History Museum. He will also collaborate with a museum researcher to create accurate botanical illustrations for scientific publication. This project will provide him with a unique professional development opportunity and foster future collaboration between French and U.S. scientific illustrator communities.

Project/Thesis Title: Development of an Internationally Accepted European Protocol for the Surveillance of RSV

Project Summary: Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is the most common cause of respiratory infections in vulnerable populations like children and the elderly and causes about 200,000 deaths worldwide every year. With the help of Dr. Thierry Blanchon and researchers at the Réseau Sentinelles, I will be leading the development of an internationally accepted European protocol for the surveillance of RSV. This means I will be determining a way to track RSV that is feasible for not only France, but the whole of Europe. With a reliable protocol for its surveillance, data could be used to determine the impact of the virus on the population, its economic impact, and the efficacy of future vaccines. If successful on the European scale, this protocol could be presented to the World Health Organization and the American CDC for further use and, thus, better data available to heath care policymakers.

Project/Thesis Title:  Characterizing the Type ll Secretion System of Klebsiella pneumoniae                  

Project Summary: Klebsiella pneumoniae is an invasive bacterium known for causing hospital- and community-acquired infections in immunocompromised individuals.  K. pneumoniae has become increasingly dangerous because its emerging strains are multi- and pan-drug resistant, and due to the absence of antibiotic treatment options, it is becoming increasingly important to identify and characterize virulence factors in K. pneumoniae. The T2SS has the capability to secrete more than 20 proteins; however, currently there is only one known protein that is secreted - pullulanase. The objective of the research in the Francetic lab is to identify other secreted proteins by extracting the secreted surface proteins from K. pneumoniae ST258 (a hypervirulent strain that has been previously sequenced) and determine the origin of its components.  I will be using bacterial clones to create mutations and analyzing  the secreted proteins of these strains compared to the classic strain and identifying the substrates via Western Blot and secretion assays.  As the final step, I will collaborate with other labs on a bioinformatics analysis to determine the function of the T2SS in the bacteria along with confirming the test results in mouse models. 

Project/Thesis Title: The Role of Political Identity in the Marketplace                  

Project Summary: Recently, several businesses have denied service to customers on political grounds. From a traditional economic viewpoint, declining service to willing customers makes little sense—people should always

choose the outcome that leaves them financially best off. However, much research has supported

the idea that humans are also motivated by non-economic incentives, including a desire to appear

“fair” or to conform with social norms—in this case, the norm of not supporting a particular

candidate. As well, economists have found that models that incorporate the role of personal

identities often better predict many seemingly puzzling economic outcomes than traditional

models.  Separately, psychologists have observed that prejudice on the basis of political identity, present in conservatives and liberals alike, is especially potent—particularly as political affiliation becomes more salient in today’s increasingly polarized climate. With the support of the Fulbright, I will study if knowledge of others’ political beliefs affects economic transactions as a student in the Economics and Finance MSc at the University of Lyon 2.

Project/Thesis Title: Cello and Live Electronics in Silence: Saariaho, Jolas, and Dusapin         

Project Summary: Extended techniques for the cello were developed by pioneering composers and cellists to increase sonic possibilities on the instrument. Under the tutelage of cellist Anssi Karttunen, I will study works by Kaija Saariaho, Betsy Jolas, and Pascal Dusapin that explore the cello’s sound production. Some works require interaction with live electronics, which blurs the distinction between acoustic and electronic sounds. I will supplement musical studies with research on the extended techniques in an anechoic chamber, to explore the quietest physical and acoustic limits of the performer and cello.

Project/Thesis Title:  Role of Hybrid Supercapacitors in the Reliability and Predictive Maintenance of Microgrids                             

Project Summary : The integration of renewable energy sources into the grid provides an opportunity to address energy poverty while combatting climate change. However, the biggest limitation of these sources is their intermittent nature, which requires the development of energy storage. Current energy storage technologies are either not scalable outside of certain regions, such as pumped hydro, or not scalable due to price, such as flywheels and fuel cells. A new form of energy storage combines lithium-ion batteries with supercapacitors to create hybrid supercapacitors that have the potential for higher energy density, rapid charging and discharging, and a longer cycle life. My research will focus on the electro-thermal characterization and the rate of aging with respect to charge and discharge cycles as well as determining how this form of energy storage influences microgrid performance and reliability in comparison to other energy storage technologies currently used in France.

Project/Thesis Title: Solar-Enabled Carbon Dioxide Recovery from Saturated Solvent Streams

Project Summary: With the threat of global climate change looming, it is becoming increasingly important to explore techniques by which carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions might be reduced. One such method, CO₂ absorption, has already been adopted by a number of industries. Unfortunately, the amount of energy required to separate the CO₂ from the solvent prior to recycling is prohibitive. This project, in collaboration with the microfluidics research group at the University of Bordeaux, will seek to utilize readily available solar energy to reduce the heat required to efficiently extract CO₂ from the CO₂-saturated solvent stream and improve the viability of the post-combustion carbon capture and sequestration process.

Project/Thesis Title: Delineating the role of the gut microbiome in anticancer immune responses

Project Summary : Major advances have been made in cancer treatment using immunotherapy, an exceptional precision medicine that leverages the power of the human immune system to fight disease. However, a large proportion of patients remain unresponsive. An area of medical research that aims to improve patient response is the microbiome. The microbiome is defined as the community of commensal bacteria, both good and bad, that shares our body space. Recent work shed light on the impact of gut microbiome on patient response to anticancer therapeutics. My work seeks to unveil unifying mechanisms of host- microbial interactions that govern response to immunotherapy. We anticipate that insights gained with this work will have broad applicability across multiple cancer types.

Project/Thesis Title: Unearthing Erik Satie: a Scholarly Edition of his Published and Unpublished Works

Project Summary: The music of Erik Satie is a largely unexplored territory in scholarly music editing; most editions are reprints of the original edition, and still others await their first printing. During his lifetime, Satie held a reputation as an anti-intellectual bohemian and a conservatory dropout who made his living as a cabaret pianist and an eccentric cultural critic. While his influence on music has been tremendous, Satie has somehow maintained his reputation as an anti-intellectual within the realm of music scholarship. During my nine months, I will research the manuscripts of Erik Satie in order to prepare scholarly editions of his published and unpublished works.

Project/Thesis Title:  Disordered Taxonomies: Zoos and Natural History in France, 1860-1900

Project Summary: My project explores how scientific classification at two Parisian zoos embodied conflicts over social hierarchies of race, class, and gender in late nineteenth-century France. The zoos sought to impose order on nature through categorization, but their efforts often met with resistance. My research analyzes how scientific taxonomies were challenged and reimagined by those whom historians have not typically considered active agents in the process: visitors, zookeepers, activists, and the displayed animals and people themselves. At zoo exhibits, actors on both sides of the bars constructed alternate ways of thinking about humans, animals, and categories of difference that would have broader implications for science and imperialism in Third Republic France.

Project/Thesis Title: Representing Difference: Painting and Performance in the Art of Raffaëlli and His Circle

Project Summary: My project considers the relationship between representation and identity in French art of the late nineteenth century through the lens of Jean-François Raffaëlli’s artwork and writing. Raffaëlli advances a critique of class and gender as socially constructed categories that shape the production and reception of art, while also suggesting the utopian possibility of transcending the circumscriptions they imply. As such, he insists on empathy as the root of representation. In contrast, the Impressionists, who dominate the narrative of avant-garde art during this period, renounced the empathetic connection with human subjects on which Raffaëlli staked his project. These diametrically opposed conceptions of the artist’s role indicate a necessary counternarrative to the conventional history of nineteenth-century French art, which I hope to address in my dissertation.

Project/Thesis Title:  The resilience of subnivium systems in the French Pyrénées                      

Project Summary: The subnivium is the seasonal refuge of warm air that exists underneath the snow, and provides a critical shelter for many plants and animals to survive extreme winter temperatures. Mountain areas are particularly sensitive to climate change due to the specific temperature and precipitation patterns found there; however, the resilience of montane subnivium habitats under warmer winter temperatures is currently unknown. Under the guidance of Dr. Vasilis Dakos, I will examine the current and future resilience of subnivium systems in the Pyrénées mountain range. This work will aid in understanding the impact of global change on these seasonal habitats under the snow, as well as the overwintering species that depend on them.

Project Summary:  As an English Teaching Assistant in France, I hope to further expand my definition of community at the local and global scales. My primary focus as a language practitioner is to establish community by developing replicable pedagogies and practices within the classroom that promote sustainability of language acquisition and of positive coping mechanisms. The language class can often be a space that perpetuates generational trauma for the most marginalized members of our community. I hope to use my time in France as an attempt to give value to voice, community, and communication. I intend to further navigate my role in this community by building connections to local agencies in order to give support to unstably housed and homeless youth.

Project Summary: I am thrilled to serve as an English Teaching Assistant at Lycée Victor Hugo. As an aspiring immigrant rights lawyer, I am interested in using language as a tool for mobility and empowerment. After previously living in both France and Morocco, I am especially excited to teach in Marseille, a hub of Mediterranean migration. Within the classroom, I am eager to learn from students about their interests and backgrounds, and craft English-learning activities accordingly. When outside the classroom, I hope to volunteer with an immigrant integration advocacy organization to expose myself to migration systems beyond the U.S., and maintain my beloved hobbies of classical piano, running, and cooking.

Project Summary : My years of experience tutoring and mentoring have taught me how to be an advocate for my students, and my personal experiences as a language learner and developing a flipped classroom French curriculum at Northwestern have shown me just how important conversation with native speakers is to the learning process. I want to be an ally for my students at Lycée Albert Schweitzer in Mulhouse and help them gain confidence, and as a journalism school graduate, I can’t wait to use multimedia such as photo and video in the classroom to connect with them and promote digital literacy. I also love to cook, and I am looking forward to tasting Alsatian cuisine and sharing my passion with my students, because I’ve found that food is my favorite way to bridge the gap between cultures.

Project Summary : As a global health major, I am interested in the role education plays in improving the future opportunities, well-being and health of students. I am excited to learn more about the French education system through my language assistant role. In the classroom, I plan to engage with students and help promote a love of language learning through different forms of art such as novels, plays and music. These vehicles have been influential in my own experience learning languages. Outside of my language assistant position, I look forward to connecting with the local community and continuing my previous volunteer experience by working for a local refugee resettlement organization. 

Project Summary: During my Fulbright year, I hope to teach the beauty and intricacies of the English language through collective and individualized learning, translation exercises, and music. My goal is to teach students how English can be one more linguistic tool in their belt, allowing their voices to be heard outside of the languages they already speak. As the Education USA Advising Assistant, I hope to make U.S. university applications more accessible to French students and their families through information sessions, application writing workshops, and instructional videos.

Project/Thesis Title: Minority History in France     

Project Summary: After researching the history of African American expatriates seeking refuge and opportunity in France, I was compelled to share this overlooked history to a broader audience. As an English Teaching Assistant in Lyon, I seek to inspire French high school students with a non-traditional perspective on American history through the stories of resilient minority groups who influenced creative arts culture in France. I plan to collaborate with the local community to develop tours focusing on the histories of minorities in the city. Through interactive and engaging lessons on the diversity of American culture, I hope my students will develop a passion for cross-cultural competency and understanding, which can serve as a guiding principle for their future contributions to society and their potential for service to marginalized communities.

Project Summary : As an ETA at Lycée Edmond Rostand, I will use the knowledge acquired while studying at Smith College and teaching English in South Korea to aid students in becoming working citizens of the increasingly  interconnected world.  I am eager to share my love of language and show the myriad benefits a multilingual life can create.  With my unique background and past global teaching experiences, I plan on bringing a new perspective to teaching young French students living in a progessively diversifying population.  In returning to France, I hope to strengthen my understanding of the French people and the French perspective.  Additionally, I will strive to deepen the connections forged during my academic year abroad in Paris as well as establish new relations with those I meet in this chapter of my journey.

Project Summary: As an ETA at Lycée Marc Bloch, I aim to create a comfortable environment for my students through one-on-one conversations, discussions, and research about topics that interest them. I am passionate about teaching languages and cultures, and about the importance of instructors furthering the ambitions of their students. I plan to incorporate debates on current events into my lessons. In addition to teaching, I hope to learn how the French education system confronts similar issues the American system faces such as proficiency, income inequality, and student diversity. I also wish to volunteer with local organizations that assist immigrants and refugees.

Project Summary : An important aspect of my Native American heritage is storytelling. It led me to my current career path. I am looking forward to using my background in communications, photography, and French to help students at Lycée Jean Zay not just learn to speak English, but also to tell stories using different media and to exchange them with American students. I aim to enrich the understanding of American culture by showing students its diversity and the different facets that are rarely seen internationally. Creating relationships is key to mutual understanding. I hope to link two communities from different parts of the world to broaden the horizons of students on both ends.

Project Summary: As an English Teaching Assistant in Perpignan, I plan to use a communicative language teaching approach to grow my students’ English skills as well as their intercultural competence. By creating language games that focus on differences in culture between France and the US, I will keep my students fully engaged and motivated to continue their studies. In addition to the classroom, I plan to engage the local community through volunteer opportunities and becoming involved in local sports communities.

Project Title: Breaking the Republican mold: Independent private Muslim and Catholic schooling in France                          

Project Summary: As a Fulbright post-doctoral scholar at the EHESS in Paris, Carol Ferrara will be affiliated with CéSor. While at the EHESS, Carol will begin her second major research project, focused on the recent rise of independent private religious schools within the otherwise centralized secular national French school system. In recent years, independent religious schooling in France has sparked concern over religious extremism, isolationism, and threats to national unity. This qualitative study analyzes the pedagogies and purposes of independent Catholic and Muslim schooling in France respectively. Using an ethnographic exploration of the factors catalyzing the schools’ growth and attractiveness for families the study offers critical insight into the ways that religious communities are responding to the moral trajectories of secular French education and society writ-large, speaking to debates within a variety of contexts beyond modern France.

Project/Thesis Title: “Untitled Maria Schneider Project”                         

Project Summary: As a Fulbright Research Scholar, filmmaker and visual artist Elisabeth Subrin will continue and extend her research on the late French actress Maria Schneider (1952-2011), best known for her provocative and problematic role in the renown Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial film, Last Tango In Paris (1971). Sexually exploited on the set of the film, Schneider allegedly never fully escaped its grip on her career and personal life. Nevertheless, Schneider remained an outspoken critic of the limited opportunities available for actresses and her prescient observations about the abuse of women in the film industry anticipated the #metoo movement by decades. Drawing from primary source materials, archival research, in person interviews, and the development of new visual and textual strategies, Subrin’s research will culminate in a speculative cinematic portrait of this complex woman which will examine the politics and poetics of contemporary biographical forms, the historical treatment of women in cinema, and the impact of trauma in shaping identity.

Project/Thesis Title: Fast detection of surface anomalies combining graph theoretic learning with multi-scale modeling methods                            

Project Summary :  This startup project is an effort to advance optical sensing technologies for the emerging smart manufacturing applications. In this context, smart sensors should not just have the capability of measure the desired physical variable(s) but also infer the state of the process and provide more actionable information based on the measured signals. Recent advancements in data science and artificial intelligence methodologies underway at Professor Bukkapatnam’s group would be leveraged with multi-scale multi-physical modeling efforts at ENSAM to develop scientific principles underpinning this next-generation smart sensor systems. This effort would include collaborations with STIL, a growing small business based in South France, specifically focusing on creating transformative innovations based on their current optical sensors.

Project/Thesis Title:  Midnight Novelists, Experimental Narratives, and the Influence of the French New Novel on Authors of the Maghreb: 1950-to the New Millennium

Project Summary:  This book seeks to establish a link between authors using experimental, avant-garde styles, notably those of the French New Novel in France, and Maghrebi authors (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) writing at the dawn of decolonization into the postcolonial moment.  The work spans 1950 to the present and will contribute to understanding the chronology of writing of French expression from the Maghreb.      

· To stimulate development of a comprehensive international education strategy that can be supported across all functional areas of the institution.

· To explore global partnerships that provide opportunities for international study, research and careers development.

· To participate in dialogue on equity in international education and barriers to international mobility for students from underrepresented backgrounds

· To collaborate with other institutions on shared challenges and opportunities and to explore ways to leverage resources through innovative alliances

· Enhance my Institution’s global engagement initiatives with France, promote faculty and student engagement, and thereby contribute to international goals of my institution

· Learn about the higher education system in France to engage with targeted groups of faculty and students interested in applying to France. Also learn from experienced scholars, business leaders, educational administrators, and other leaders in France, network with international colleagues, and form ongoing professional relationships

· Participate in campus visits, cultural activities, seminars and regional visits to learn about the rich history and culture of France; integrate knowledge of France into teaching, and increase awareness of France in my home community.

· To learn more about other education systems to inform our refection on our own system. This new knowledge can only strengthen our perspective and help us achieve our long-term goals of innovation and service to the community.

· Build a network of colleagues that would extend to our institution. Those collegial relationships have the potential for bringing new thought-partners to the table or to lead to curricular and extracurricular programs to benefit our students. For example, our School has recently included several study abroad trips for educators to learn from peers internationally. We have also considered building more pathways for international collaborations in our degree programs.

• We (Flagler College) are currently looking to build our relationships with other schools/partners and would like to deepen our reach in France, as our students are drawn to studying there.
• As an administrator, I would also like to learn more about the French education system, and learn about any best practices we may be able to replicate at our college while learning more about the higher education system in France in general. 
• We would like to start a consistent, long-term program of sending students to different regions of France to study. In addition, the college is ready to welcome French exchange students to campus in order to bring a global experience to our students who are not able to study abroad.
• I am looking forward to not only meeting new, French colleagues, but to also meeting other seminar participants and learning more about their schools while discussing possibilities for partnerships.

Internationalization of Campus through connections with French Universities

Networking with Professionals from the US interested in Internationalization

Sharing Administrative Knowledge and Interest with French & European Colleagues

Creating Connections with French and European Faculty & Students

• To collect ideas about how to build an international recruitment plan for graduate and professional students to stem a downward trend. Graduate applications have dropped from 15,355 in 2014 to 8,540 in 2018.
• To understand the French Higher Education System and market for Higher Education.
• Learn how French students use social media, how they get information about and make decisions regarding Higher Education institutions.
• Assist OSU faculty make connections with French institutions and visa versa.
• Make connections with records officers and others that I can share with staff in the Admissions Office so we can better evaluate French credentials

• International education and international exchange
• Professional exchange programs/professional development initiatives
• Social movements
• Multiculturalism and diversity in international contexts
• The African/African-American Diaspora

· Deepen and broaden institutional initiatives related to internationalization of student’s academic and cultural experiences.

· Pursue international partnerships which strategically help expose our students to most influential historic, cultural, and economic forces to help understand our world today.

· Explore challenges of establishing partnerships with francophone countries.

· Find and begin steps to establish appropriate institutions with mutual interest for partnerships

• Gain in-depth knowledge of French education and culture
• Establish connections with like -minded colleagues from the cohort
• Personal and professional development
• Enhance LSU’s exchange programs (especially with France) upon return

1. I hope to forge connections with Fulbright’s French and European institutional partners in France, and to learn more about them and their institutions

2. I seek to develop deeper knowledge of the French and European higher education environment.

3. I am interested in learning what types of cultural and international exchange initiatives Fulbright’s French and European Institutional partners are engaged in, and to engage in intellectual and creative exchanges regarding possible programs and partnerships.

4.  I seek to initiate COIL partnerships with my French colleagues.

5. I hope to create long-lasting cultural exchange affiliations and collaborations that will benefit students seeking to be successful in a global context. 

· Understand the French country’s higher education systems and establish potential networking relationships. The objective is to understand how to encourage more study abroad visits for our faculty and students. Expand and strengthen the network to help our community address global challenges and enhance knowledge about working in international communities. Identify opportunities for international research, expanding networking relationships with top level business and academic leaders in France, identifying future student study tours, and collaborative research engagements.

Project/Thesis Title: Human Rights in the Age of European Integration: An Ethnography of the European Court of Human Rights                    

Project Summary : I will conduct 4.5 months of research at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and engage with faculty at the University of Strasbourg’s SAGE program (Societies, Actors and Government in Europe). My anthropological research on European human rights practices responds to increasing concerns about how twentieth-century European institutions respond to twenty-first century political and social challenges. I argue that the institutions and practices through which social actors enact democratic ideals and rule of law deeply shape the meaning of democracy itself.

Project/Thesis Title: Does resource colimitation theory predict the spread of invasive plants? A case study of ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) in northern France                      

Project Summary: With collaborators at Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV), I will develop theory on how resource supply limits the spread of invasive plant species, and apply it to the potential invasion of ragweed in Hauts-de-France. Ragweed is a significant public health concern in France but it is not yet common in Hauts-de-France; the project will help to define where in the landscape its northward expansion is likely due to different substrate conditions. New theory developed in the project will add to our understanding of how plants and ecosystems in general respond to changes in multiple environmental drivers.

Project/Thesis Title:  Dissertation: Spatial Heterogeneity and the Stability of a Predator-Prey Link      

Project Summary:  My work since then has included freshwater population and community ecology of pond and stream organisms and a broad array of other systems and approaches, including liverwort metapopulations, carnivorous plants and spiders, complex life histories, cooperative breeding and eusociality, family dynamics and incubation of birds, mating systems of humans and other species, and human-induced rapid environmental change. Much recent work has been theoretical, using game theory and optimization.

Project/Thesis Title: Supercritical Fluid-Liquid Mixing in a High-Pressure Microreactor 

Project Summary: The project is focused on mixing studies of supercritical fluids, chiefly carbon dioxide, and water at pressures greater than 5 MPa. I will learn techniques from my host to fabricate high-pressure, view-cell microfluidic reactors and then use these microreactors to study droplet formation during the mixing process. Applications include study of supercritical fluid extraction of biological end products from fermentation mixtures.

Project Title: Performing Migrant Stories            

Project Summary: Performing Migrant Stories is a collaborative, creative, theatrical, and arts-based research (ABR) project that focuses on migrants in and around Aix-Marseille University, in partnership with Compagnie La Scène Manassa.Performing Migrant Stories is a pursuit in understanding personal experiences of human beings who have lost homes and homeland due to the ravages of violence and/or economic collapse. This project uses methods of devised performance, storytelling, applied theatre and self-reflexive ethnography to evoke alternative modes of transformational healing and identity, and to interrogate cultural assimilation with voluntary participants from both migrant and local communities.

Project/Thesis Title: Electronic Fractals in Strongly Correlated Quantum Materials

Project Summary :
By importing theoretical tools from fractal mathematics and disordered statistical mechanics into the field of quantum materials, my research group has defined new paradigms for understanding the nanoscale electronic textures observed at the surface of quantum materials. Our new analysis methods allow surface probes, for the first time, to draw conclusions about the interior of materials. This new field of analysis has revealed universal behavior across several families of strongly correlated quantum materials.
With the range of quantum materials and experimental techniques available at ESPCI, I will explore the connection between these theoretical advances and the quantum materials studied by the experimental researchers at ESPCI.

Project/Thesis Title: Wetlands, watersheds, and the grand challenge of water security

Project Summary: I will examine how wetlands safeguard water quality. Wetlands filter pollution from water before it flows into lakes, rivers, and coasts. Yet many wetlands, viewed individually, are legally deemed insignificant so are destroyed. My French hosts and I will collaborate to examine the alternative, that wetlands protect surface waters by functioning as a network of associated habitats. French graduate students will participate in the research and I will interact with students at the University of Lyon. These experiences will build an international partnership around the challenge of water security, and will enrich my role back at my home institution.

Project/Thesis Title:            Colorless: Infraordinary performance and the archive

Project Summary: Using site-specific performance practices and Georges Perec’s concept of the infraordinary, I investigate links between how the trans-Atlantic French colonial slave trade is documented in New Orleans and selected sites in France (Brest, Lorient, Nantes). After conducting archival research and experimental fieldwork, I will develop a cycle of performances that explores the infraordinary as it relates to documentation of the French colonial slave trade. My goal is to create a trans-Atlantic dialogue amidst all the collected archival materials in order to generate performance events in Brest, Lorient, Nantes and New Orleans.

Project/Thesis Title: Reading Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty Together at the Origins of French Phenomenology

Project Summary: As a Fulbright Research Scholar at the École Normale Supérieure (rue d'Ulm), Prof. McWeeny will research and write the first two chapters of a book that  traces the co-evolution of the philosophies of Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty from their first meeting in 1927 to their best known publications of the 1940s and 50s. This comparative approach, which engages Francophone and Anglophone sources to an equal extent, challenges standard characterizations of their thinking that politicize or particularize Beauvoir’s insights while universalizing Merleau-Ponty’s. McWeeny’s analysis thus reveals anew the contemporary significance of a number of their views for a global world, especially in regard to the pressing need to account for the underlying ontologies of social and bodily categories such as sex, race, class, and nationality in nuanced and culturally-specific ways.

Biography: Born and raised in Sierra Leone, West Africa, Michael Abioseh Porter is a Professor of English at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. He was Department Head of the Department of English & Philosophy at Drexel from May 2002-December 2015, served as the founding editor of the Journal of the African Literature Association (JALA) from 2007-2017 and was also editor of JALA’s predecessor, the ALA Bulletin from 1998-2007. After earning a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Alberta, Canada, Porter received a "Society for the Humanities" postdoctoral Fellowship at Cornell University and was a senior postdoctoral fellow at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Prior to coming to Drexel, he taught at the University of Alberta and at Grambling State University, Louisiana. Professor Porter has published mainly on African authors writing in English, French, Krio, and Pidgin while his teaching interests span several areas in both the western and postcolonial literary traditions. At Drexel, he has received, among others, the  “Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching and, in 2019, was given the “Harold Myers. Award for Distinguished Service” at Drexel.

Project Title: Olympe Bhêly-Quénum and the Cultures of Benin and France

Project Summary: I plan to write a critical biography of the Beninois-French writer, Olympe Bhêly-Quénum. I hope that the work of this thoroughly knowledgeable man, schooled in Ancient Greek and Latin Cultures as well as in Fon (Beninois) and Yoruba cultures, will be instrumental in providing additional cultural forms of education for readers on both sides of the Atlantic. An exploration of Bhêly-Quénum’s literary life will allow readers to see how this deeply spiritual person has been exploring the implications of topics such as alterity, existentialism, classism, racism, misogyny and religiosity in the creation and sustenance of evil in a world that seems to have been severed from its most recent past.

Project/Thesis Title: Developing Statistical Models and Software for Large-Scale Ecological Analyses

Project Summary: Modern ecological research relies on hierarchical models for capturing relationships between distinct but intertwined environmental processes and on computational algorithms for fitting these models to data. However, the software available for addressing these problems is dated and inadequate for today’s abundance of data. I will work with the computational ecologists at France’s Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology to develop new and scalable algorithms for fitting a diverse set of ecological models, broadly applicable across areas of ecology and environmental science. These tools will be made publically available as open-source software, to benefit researchers worldwide.

Project/Thesis Title: Understanding plant communication in parasitic plant-host systems                       

Project Summary: I seek to understand how parasitic plants interact with their host plants. Parasitic plants physically connect to host plants, feeding off them to gain water and nutrients. Parasites have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to identify preferred hosts and to exchange signaling molecules to manipulate these hosts. I view this plant communication as a target for disrupting the parasitic relationship and creating host crops resistant to parasite attack. I will work with colleagues who have unique resources for parasitic plant research, share my own extensive experience with these organisms, and raise awareness of plants as sophisticated organisms that perceive and manipulate their environment.

Project/Thesis Title: Meteorological Importance of the Benguela Jet            

Project Summary : The Benguela Jet is a low-level jet stream along the coast of Namibia. Its existence was first documented by the applicant in 2010. Since then only three papers have discussed it.  None has examined its impacts on weather and climate. As a Fulbright scholar I will study three potential areas of impact.  The main one is the relationship between the Benguela Jet and coastal fog.  Fog is the lifeblood of the nearly rainless Namib desert and the ecosystem has adapted to their presence.  I will also study the impact of the jet on rainfall in equatorial and West Africa, and on paleoclimate during the last 50,000 years.  I will spend one month each in Germany and France and two months in Namibia.  The paleoclimate work will be carried out in France.