Six students and lecturers from NUI Galway have been awarded Fulbright Scholarships to continue their work in the United Staters.
The Fulbright Awards are given annually by the Irish and US governments, to provide Irish students, scholars, and professionals with the opportunity to study, lecture, and research at top universities and institutions throughout the United States.
Among the 40 awardees were six winners from NUI Galway: Dr David Collins, Professor Fidelma Dunne, Colm Mac Fhionnghaile, Dr Emer Mulligan, Julanne Murphy, and Alena Yuryna Connolly, and Galwegian Dr Ian McLoughlin from Sligo IT.
Dr Gavin Collins is a lecturer in microbiology and European Research Council Fellow at NUI Galway, and a British Science Association Media Fellow at The Irish Times. As a Fulbright scholar at the University of California Berkeley, Dr Collins will investigate microbial genomics in bioenergy production and enhanced oil recovery processes.
Professor Fidelma Dunne is the head of the School of Medicine at NUI Galway, and alongside Professor Mary D’Alton at Columbia University in New York, will compare and contrast the screening for and clinical outcomes for women with gestational diabetes in both states to include a cost benefit analysis.
Colm Mac Fhionnghaile, who is an MA candidate in Modern Irish at NUI Galway, will be a foreign language teaching assistant in the University of Connecticut.
Dr Emer Mulligan, head of the School of Business and Economics at NUI Galway, will research taxation practice in US multinational corporations and US tax policy and administration at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Julanne Murphy, who completed a Professional Diploma in Education at NUI Galway in 2012 and is currently a secondary school teacher at Ardscoil Ris, Limerick, will be a foreign language teaching assistant at the Catholic University of America, Washington DC.
Alena Yuryna Connolly, who is currently undertaking a PhD in information systems security at NUIH, will research socio-cultural measures that promote security-cautious behaviour of employees in organisational settings at the University of California Berkeley.
A mathematician, statistician and computer scientist, Dr McLoughlin is one of six Irish recipients of a new “Fulbright -TechImpact Award”, an accolade that will also enable him to take up an invitation from Stanford to do research work there as a visiting scholar.
