Marcella Vaicik explained how being an NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute Fellowship awardee meant that she was listed as the PI on her proposal and it allowed her to spend 3 months in Taiwan doing research.
Katherine Alfredo spent closer to a year working in Ghana doing drinking water research as a Fulbright Scholar. Our third panelist, Prinda Wanakule, Ph.D., was a research assistant in Europe at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. She obtained this position through her SWE network.
International Member Coordinator, Jennifer Patterson, Ph.D. had done a postdoctoral fellowship there in the same field and connected Prinda with a PI there.They all shared amusing and interesting stories about their adjustments to a different culture and the challenges involved in completing a research proposal in a set amount of time.
While entertaining and informative about research in other countries, this panel was also a great resource to anyone interested in applying for fellowships. See the links below for more information on the fellowships that were discussed:
- NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5284
- Fulbright Fellowship: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/
- Whitaker International Program: http://www.whitaker.org/