Lopez-Anido Receives Fulbright Scholar Grant
Contact: Nick Houtman, Dept. of Public Affairs, 207-581-3777
ORONO– Roberto Lopez-Anido, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maine, has received a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and do research at Universidad de Chile in Santiago, Chile during the 2005-2006 academic year. He is among about 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to some 140 countries, according to the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
Lopez-Anido has conducted research and developed innovative designs for bridge and pier decks, marine piles and retaining walls and other structures using high-performance wood-plastic composite materials. In Chile, he will continue this work, utilizing by-products from the Chilean forest industry.
He and colleagues from the Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center at UMaine conduct research and training leading to product development, which will meet identified market needs as well as larger institutional and international opportunities.
He will teach at Universidad de Chile to expand cultural exchange and, upon return to UMaine, he will foster scholar and student exchanges within the framework of the general agreement between both institutions.
The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship international educational exchange activity, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, its purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.
Over the past 57 years, thousands of U.S. faculty and professionals have studied, taught or done research abroad, and thousands of their counterparts from other countries have engaged in similar activities in the U.S. They are among more than 250,000 American and foreign university students, K-12 teachers, and university faculty and professionals who have participated in one of the several Fulbright exchange programs.
Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and because they have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential in their fields. Among thousands of prominent Fulbright Scholar alumni are Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist; Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prizewinning poet; and Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel Corporation.