The Fulbright Award is a scholarship

Scholarship

A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...

 awarded as part of the Fulbright Program

Fulbright Program

The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the...

 to foster international research and collaboration. The program also awards a fellowship to Ph.D.'s to lecture and teach in foreign universities. Established in 1946, the Fulbright Program aims to increase mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States and other countries, through the exchange of persons, knowledge and skills. Programs also bring foreign scholars to the United States and succeed in developing mutual understanding and access worldwide in the international academic and professional communities.

The program makes a number of awards at undergraduate, postgraduate, post-doctoral and Fellow

Fellow

A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

ship levels. Fulbrights are prestigious, career-enhancing awards. They also confer special status on winners during their year of foreign study, as outstanding, officially recognized representatives of their country. Famous Fulbright recipients include Samuel L. Kountz

Samuel L. Kountz

Dr. Samuel L. Kountz was an African American kidney transplantation surgeon from Lexa, Arkansas. He was most distinguished for his pioneering work in the field of kidney transplantations, and in research, discoveries, and inventions in Renal Science. In 1961, while working with Dr...

, Thomas R. Pickering

Thomas R. Pickering

Thomas Reeve "Tom" Pickering , is a retired United States ambassador. Among his many diplomatic appointments, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1989 to 1992.-Early life:...

, John Lithgow

John Lithgow

John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...

, Hedwig Gorski

Hedwig Gorski

Dr. Hedwig Gorski is an American performance poet and an avant-garde artist who labels her aesthetic as American Futurism...

, Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...

, Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Boutros Boutros-Ghali is an Egyptian politician and diplomat who was the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1992 to December 1996...

, Charles Kennedy

Charles Kennedy

Charles Peter Kennedy is a British Liberal Democrat politician, who led the Liberal Democrats from 9 August 1999 until 7 January 2006 and is currently a Member of Parliament for the Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency....

, Dolph Lundgren

Dolph Lundgren

Dolph Lundgren is a Swedish actor, director, and martial artist. He belongs to a generation of film actors who epitomise the movie action hero stereotype including Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme.A graduate in chemical...

, and Renée Fleming

Renée Fleming

Renée Fleming is an American soprano specializing in opera and lieder. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice.Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano repertoires. She has sung roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also...

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Created through the efforts of US Senator J. William Fulbright

J. William Fulbright

James William Fulbright was a United States Senator representing Arkansas from 1945 to 1975.Fulbright was a Southern Democrat and a staunch multilateralist who supported the creation of the United Nations and the longest serving chairman in the history of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...

, for over 60 years the Fulbright Program has been promoting peace and understanding through educational exchange. It is one of the most prestigious award programmes worldwide, operating in 144 countries and with 51 commissions. More Fulbright alumni have won Nobel Prizes than those of any other academic program, including two in 2010.