Contact: Bob Ratliff
Mississippi State is sending and receiving scholars this year through the nation's flagship international exchange program.
A retired university faculty member and a biological engineering student are 2001 Fulbright American Scholars, while a leading Albanian veterinary professor is scheduled to visit the Starkville campus as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar.
Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the awards enable Americans to study, teach, lecture, and conduct research abroad. Foreign nationals also are encouraged to engage in similar activities in the United States.
Participants are selected on the basis of academic or professional qualifications and their ability and willingness to share ideas and experiences with people of diverse cultures.
Armando de la Cruz, MSU professor emeritus of biological sciences and zoology, is at the mid-point of a 10-month Fulbright-sponsored tenure at the University of Andalas on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. In addition to lectures on ecology and environmental sciences, he is presenting seminars at other Indonesian schools and in neighboring countries.
Graduate student Chad Winter of Pontotoc, a biological engineering major, is making plans to leave in August for a nine-month research fellowship at the University of Nyjmegen in the Netherlands. His study will focus in an area of bone cell response to mechanical strain.
Winter is a 1994 Pontotoc High School graduate and the son of Dean Winter and Angie Winter. He is a 1998 MSU graduate in biological engineering.
Later this year, Dr. Edmond Panariti, deputy director of Albania's Veterinary Research Institute, joins the MSU College of Veterinary Medicine faculty for a six-month research project involving meadow saffron, a toxic member of the lily family. In the United States, the native European plant has escaped from home gardens to pasture lands and, as a result, caused grazing cows to transfer the toxin to their milk.