Fulbright SchumanWhen I arrived in Belgium for my Fulbright grant a few weeks before winter 2021 I was, about as literally as possible, a fish out of water. Upon getting my bearings and meeting locals I began to receive a common question: why did you choose Belgium? To this I had come up with a pithy […]
I have celiac disease, which means I have a gluten allergy. If I eat food that contains gluten, I get sick. Moving to Vienna, Austria and spending extended lengths of time in Sweden for my Fulbright research means I have spent a lot of time staring at the shelves in supermarkets, trying to figure out […]
Overture: American words, European thoughts “You enter a kind of altered, out of body state. I can’t explain it, probably no one can. You’ll get it after a few months. Good luck”. So said a friend and Fulbright alum to Asia in the 2010s after an impromptu pre-departure dis-orientation last summer as we hugged and […]
Having grown up on a dwarf planet in the solar system of the United States’ cultural imperialism, my frame of reference is replete with American products, phenomena, and even phrases. While the orbital elements of U.S. hegemony – politics, news, and entertainment – have thus shaped how I look at the world, life in my native country, the Netherlands, only exposed me to reflections and derivatives of life in the American center of gravity.
The Fulbright-Schuman Program made possible one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. Even if I initially conceived it as a mainly academic project, I very soon realized that this would be a profoundly transforming and personal experience. Being in New York City for six months to study at Columbia University was academically enriching […]
Spending five months studying in New York was an enriching experience that challenged my idea of the United States. Before going into the nitty gritty of my experience, some background is needed as to why I decided to study in the US. Mid-way through the second year of my PhD in Law at the European […]
As I approach the end of my Fulbright-Schuman experience and time in Brussels, I’ve been taking some time to reflect back on it. I applied for Fulbright knowing it would be a challenging and rewarding experience, but I have been surprised by what has been the hardest parts. The two main requirements of my grant […]
From September 2016 to April 2017, thanks to the Fulbright Schuman grant, I spent eight months at Yale University as a pre-doctoral research fellow. During this time, I had the chance to finalize my PhD project ‘The business of state-building: How business associations shaped the performance of local governments in Bosnia and Herzegovina’. Having recently […]
During the past five-and-a-half months, thanks to the Fulbright Schuman grant, I have been conducting my research at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C. It has been a fantastic time, which allowed me not only to delve into my project on “Forms of Foreign Policy Cooperation in the Unraveled Transatlantic […]
My Fulbright-Schuman research project examines the labor market integration of refugees in select EU Member States. Broadly, my study looks at how private enterprise works with government agencies in facilitating refugees’ job readiness and labor market integration, whether through the direct hiring of refugees or through policy development (e.g., through influencing the development of vocational […]