Two UTS graduates were among 48 scholars (31 Australian, 17 American) who officially received Fulbright scholarships on Wednesday (8 March) at Parliament House in Canberra.
Law scholar and author Alison Whittaker was awarded the 2017 Fulbright Indigenous Postgraduate Scholarship and UTS Business School alumnus Arjun Bisen, now an Australian diplomat based in Cambodia, will study public policy at Harvard University in the US after being awarded the Fulbright Anne Wexler Scholarship.
It's been a year and more of achievement for Whittaker, a recent Writing and Cultural Studies/Law graduate, launching her debut poetry collection Lemons in the Chicken Wire last April and last month being announced the joint winner of the Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets.
A Gomeroi woman from Gunnedah in NSW, Alison was the inaugural recipient of the UTS Faculty of Law's Equity Scholarship and in 2015 was named the National Indigenous Law Student of the Year by the Federal Government.
Alison intends to use the Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship to complete a Master of Laws (LLM) program at Harvard.
She hopes to spend her time in the LLM program exploring similarities and tensions in the enforcement and development of Indigenous lawmaking alongside emerging responses by Indigenous women against gendered violence.
Arjun Bisen plans to research China's relationship with "weak states", its impact on security in the Indo-Pacific region, and possible responses by Australian and US governments, while undertaking a Master's in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
He also wants to explore the opportunities presented by emerging technologies and advances in behavioural sciences to improve the implementation of Australia's foreign policy and deliver development outcomes.
In his Cambodia posting, Bisen has been involved in engagement in areas such as human rights, trade, disability aid programs and private sector development.
Overseen in Australia by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission, the Fulbright Program is the flagship foreign exchange scholarship program of the United States of America, aimed at increasing binational collaboration, cultural understanding, and the exchange of ideas.
- Two UTS graduates were awarded prestigious Fulbright scholarships to undertake postgraduate study in the United States at a ceremony in Canberra this week
- Law scholar and author Alison Whittaker was awarded the 2017 Fulbright Indigenous Postgraduate Scholarship and UTS Business School alumnus Arjun Bisen will study public policy at Harvard after being awarded the Fulbright Anne Wexler Scholarship