CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Three University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty members received Fulbright U.S. Scholar Awards for the 2026-2027 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
- Professor Eric Calderwood (Ph.D.), Director of the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Students and a professor in the School of Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics at Illinois, received a Fulbright Scholar Award to Spain. His host institution will be the Spanish National Research Council.
- Professor Tigga Kingston (Ph.D.), an Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior professor in the School of Integrative Biology at Illinois and the inaugural Shelford-Pitelka-Batzli Professor in Mammalian Ecology, received the BRIN-Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award.
- Professor Jacob Bowers (Ph.D.), a professor in the Department of Political Science at Illinois, received a Fulbright Scholar Award to Chile. His host institution will be Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile.
Calderwood’s project, The Girl from Tetouan: Amina Loh and the Margins of Moroccan Culture, shines a light on Moroccan writer Amina Loh (1926-2015), something Calderwood said is long overdue.
Loh was born in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco. She was the first Ph.D., she was one of Morocco’s first female journalists and hosted her own radio program, and she was also among the first Moroccans to write fiction and theater in Arabic.
"Yet, despite these accomplishments, Loh is practically forgotten today,” Calderwood said. “My project explores Loh’s extraordinary life but also the circumstances that have pushed her life to the margins of historical memory.”
Kingston’s project, which is titled Parallel Evolution in Indonesia’s Island , focuses on species complexes in two bat families—Rhinolophidae and Hipposideridae.
The study aims to understand how similar ecological conditions in geographically isolated locations lead to the evolution of identical ecological morphs (ecomorphs) within these species. Ecomorphs are distinct, genetically or plastic variations in appearance, behavior, or physiology within a single species that correlate with specific environmental roles, habitats, or resource use.
“The research will involve surveys in the Sulawesi archipelago to support phylogeographic analysis and ecological assessments through acoustic playbacks and telemetry,” Kingston said. “The findings will provide insights into the predictability of evolutionary outcomes, the role of sensory ecology in rapid speciation, and inform conservation strategies.”
Kingston will be hosted within BRIN, specifically in the Research Center for Biosystematics & Evolution.
Bowers will be working with Professor Matias López on a project called Advancing the Use of Probability for Case Studies, Process Tracing, and Other Qualitative Research, which looks at statistical methods to help researchers who are working on case studies and other qualitative research designs.
To be precise, the project aims to develop a unified statistical-inference framework for qualitative casual inference that allows researchers to:
Develop and release an open-source R package that implements p-value calculation for qualitative data, omnibus hypothesis testing, sensitivity analysis, and evidence weighting.
“Our project not only strengthens connections between the USA and Chile but also forges new connections between quantitative and qualitative political methodology,” Bowers said.
Director for Global Relations Sammer Jones (Ph.D.) is Illinois’ Fulbright Scholar liaison and congratulated this year’s scholars on their achievements.
“The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is committed to supporting global learning in all forms,” Jones said. “Opportunities like the Fulbright Scholar fellowship provide valuable professional development for our colleagues who are already championing international exchange in the classroom.”
The Fulbright Program is marking its 80th anniversary in 2026, which coincides with America's 250th anniversary.
This dual milestone provides an unprecedented opportunity to showcase the Fulbright Program's role in America's legacy of leadership, innovation, international collaboration, and American excellence.
Fulbright provides opportunities for exceptional Americans and participants from 160 countries and locations to study, teach, and conduct research abroad.
Since 1946, Fulbrighters have been leaders at the forefront of discovery and innovation, conducting cutting edge research, advancing critical industries, and preparing future generations with new skills and perspectives.
In the United States, the Institute of International Education implements the Fulbright U.S. Student and U.S. Scholar Programs on behalf of the U.S. Department of State.
Applications are open for the 2027-2028 Fulbright U.S. Scholar award cycle. The deadline to apply is September 15, 2026.
Learn more about Fulbright U.S. Scholar awards and eligibility.
Analicia Haynes is the storytelling coordinator at Illinois International. She can be reached at ahayn2@illinois.edu.