In May 2003, José Luis Benítez (FANTEL, El Salvador), a doctoral candidate in mass communications at Ohio Univ., presented his paper “Television in El Salvador: Foreign Investment, Loss of Local Control?” at the third annual Media in Transition conference, held at the Massachusetts Inst. of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Benítez’s paper examines television programming trends in Latin America over the last twenty years and discusses the impact of international programs on Salvadoran TV.
Vicente Córdova Yanchapanta (FUNDACYT, Ecuador) presented a poster entitled “Evaluation of Simulation-Derived Data for Estimating Biogeochemical Processes in a Secondary Forest Biome in Southern Indiana” at the June 2003 meeting of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis SpecNet Working Group in Santa Barbara, California. SpecNet is a network of tower sites across a range of ecosystems where “near surface” remote sensing is being conducted to estimate the biosphere-atmosphere carbon exchange. Córdova completed his master’s degree in natural resources and environmental management at Ball State Univ. (BSU) in July 2003. He is now pursuing a doctoral degree in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management at BSU.
During the course of his master’s degree program at Teachers College, Columbia Univ., Paulo Sérgio da Silva (Fulbright, Brazil) has given over 20 presentations about Brazil at New York City public schools through Metro International’s Global Classroom program. This volunteer program brings international scholars and students into city schools to share their perspectives on their home countries and cultures. In March 2004, da Silva led a Global Classroom group of Fulbright grantees from around the world who shared their experiences with students at the Bronx International High School, a school for students who recently immigrated to the United States. Da Silva also served as one of three Fulbright grantee presenters at Metro International’s 13th annual Fulbright Awards Dinner, held at the United Nations in May 2003.
In May 2003, Donna Hope (Fulbright, Jamaica) presented her paper “Globalizing Jamaican Dancehall Culture—The British Link-Up Crew” at the 28th Annual Conference of the Caribbean Studies Association in Belize City, Belize. In April, she presented “Extending the Dancehall Body—The British Link-Up Crew” at Bowdoin College’s first Caribbean Studies conference, entitled Borders, Boundaries, and the Global in Caribbean Studies, in Brunswick, Maine. The papers are two in a series Hope has written on Caribbean dancehall culture. She is a Ph.D. candidate in cultural studies at George Mason Univ.
Marcos Sánchez Plata (FUNDACYT, Ecuador) co-organized an international workshop held in Quito and Guayaquil, Ecuador, in May 2003 entitled Curso Avanzado de Inocuidad Alimentaria e Implementación de Planes HACCP. As a part of the workshop, Sánchez arranged for four Univ. of Nebraska- Lincoln (UNL) professors to visit Ecuadorian universities—including the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) and the Univ. San Francisco de Quito—as well as businesses and other organizations. In June 2003, Sánchez completed his master’s degree in food sciences at UNL, where he is now pursuing a doctorate in food science and technology.
Heather Allison Thompson (Fulbright, Barbados) presented her paper “Discussing Popular Art in the Caribbean—Where Do You Start? Where Do You Go? How Do You Get There?” at the Annual Conference of the College Art Association in New York, New York, in February 2003. She was also invited to present “Tourism and Visual Representation” at the Caribbean Visual Culture Conference at New York Univ. in April 2003. Thompson, a Ph.D. candidate in art history at Stony Brook Univ., was a 2003 Lewis A. Tyler Trustees’ Fund award recipient.
“Particulate Matter Dispersion in Urban Environments in Colombia” (with S. Gómez and C. Echeverri) and “Urban Air Pollution and Monitoring Networks in Colombia” (with F. Molina) were among the four papers Colombian Julián Bedoya Velásquez (USAID, M.A, 1979, systems engineering, Purdue Univ.) presented at the 96th Annual Conference and Exhibition of the Air and Waste Management Association in San Diego, California, in June 2003. Bedoya is a professor of industrial and environmental engineering at the Univ. Nacional de Colombia in Medellín, where he has conducted research in environmental issues for the past 25 years.
Panamanian Martín Candanedo Guevara (Fulbright, M.A., 1993, civil engineering, Ohio State Univ., Columbus) was elected dean of the Facultad de Ingeniería Civil at the Univ. Tecnológica de Panamá.
Dominican Carlos de Jesús Arias (Fulbright, M.A, 2003, animal science, North Dakota State Univ.) gave two presentations at a joint meeting of the American Dairy Science Association and the American Society of Animal Science in Phoenix, Arizona, in June 2003. De Jesús presented a poster entitled “Dietary supplementation of nucleosides in late pregnant and lactating rats” (with C.E. Oliver, W.L. Keller, and C.S. Park). He also gave an oral presentation based on his paper “Influence of dietary nucleotides on calf health” (with C.E. Oliver, M.L. Bauer, W.L. Keller, and C.S. Park).
In April, Ecuadorian Eugenia María del Pino (USAID, M.A., 1969, biology, Vassar College, Ph.D., 1972, biology, Emory Univ.) received the 2003 Sheth Distinguished International Alumni Award from Emory Univ. for her innovative work in the field of developmental biology as well as her outstanding accomplishments as a conservationist and teacher. She has taught developmental biology at Pontificia Univ. Católica del Ecuador since 1972 and conducts research on the reproductive and developmental physiology of marsupial tree frogs. Del Pino has also collaborated with the Charles Darwin Foundation, a Galapagos ecosystem conservation organization, for over thirty years, serving as the foundation’s vice president for Ecuador from 1992-1996 and as the vice-president of its general assembly from 1998-2001.
Canadian Monica Escobar (OAS, Ph.D., 2003, short-term research, social science, Inst. de Estudios Peruanos) was invited to participate in the budgetary planning meetings of two Peruvian municipalities, Santo Domingo and Pacaipampa, in May 2003. While at the Inst. de Estudios Peruanos, Escobar also collected data on women’s participation in local government in Villa El Salvador, an immigrant community outside Lima, and interviewed educators from the Centro de Investigación y Promoción del Campesinado (CIPCA) about ways to encourage grassroots participation in local government.
Since completing her degree, American Kristin Ferguson (OAS, Ph.D., 2003, international comparative social welfare policy, Univ. of Texas at Arlington/Univ. Autónoma de Nuevo León) has published several articles, including a book review of Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community, published in the Social Policy Journal, and a paper, “Intra-Regional Assessment of the Structural Influences of the Street-Children Phenomenon in Latin America: The Case of Brazil and Mexico,” published in Social Development Issues. Ferguson also presented a paper at the February 2003 Annual Program Meeting of the Council on Social Work Education in Atlanta, Georgia.
In May 2003, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva nominated Joaquim Benedito Barbosa Gomes (Fulbright, short term research, 2003, law, Univ. of California, Los Angeles) to the Brazilian Supreme Court, making him the court’s first Afro-Brazilian appointee. While he was a visiting scholar at UCLA, Gomes researched a book he is writing on affirmative action in the United States.
Paraguayan José Ibañez (OAS, M.A., 2002, public administration, George Mason Univ.) serves as assistant secretary to the president of Paraguay, Nicanor Duarte Frutos. Ibañez also recently published a book entitled Diálogos con los Ausentes, in which he discusses political culture in Paraguay and Latin America.
In September 2003, Dominican Joel Quezada Martich (Fulbright, M.A., 2003, textile sciences, Univ. of Massachusetts Dartmouth) presided over the “Polymer Synthesis” session at the 226th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in New York, New York. At the session, he also presented his paper, “Synthesis and characterization of a diethylene glycol monobutyl ether-capped polysiloxane-polyethylene glycol block copolymer” (with Q. Fan and S.C. Ugbolue).
Salvadoran Luis Salazar Flores (OAS, M.A., 2003, journalism, Univ. of Oregon) won first place for “Photo Excellence in Picture Story” in the Associated Collegiate Press Individual Awards competition. His winning photo story, “America in Black and White” (with text by M. Hemphill and J. Mankofsky) was featured on the cover and inside pages of the 2003 issue of Flux, the annual magazine of the Univ. of Oregon School of Journalism and Communications.
In 2002, Ecuadorian Raúl Vallejo Corral (Fulbright, M.S., 1996, literature, Univ. of Maryland, College Park) was awarded a national journalism prize, “Símbolos de Libertad,” for his editorial piece, “El regreso del Padrino.” The following year, Vallejo’s book of poetry, Cánticos para Oriana was published by the Barcelona-based publishing house, Seix Barral. Vallejo teaches literature at the Univ. Andina Simón Bolívar in Ecuador, where he serves as director of the university publication, Kipus: revista andina de letras.
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