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Four scholars from the University of Washington have been honored as Fulbright Scholars for the 2025-2026 academic year and will engage in research projects in Spain, Taiwan, Poland, and Japan.

The distinguished scholars include Jamie Donatuto, a clinical associate professor from the Department of Environment & Occupational Health Sciences; Shelly Gray, a professor within the School of Pharmacy; Michael Kula, an associate professor at the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at UW Tacoma; and Yen-Chu Weng, an assistant teaching professor in the College of the Environment.

Fulbright Scholars encompass university and college faculty, administrators, researchers, as well as artists and professionals, collaborating to enhance their skills and networks, gain valuable global perspectives, and return to share their knowledge with students and colleagues.

“These four Fulbright accolades exemplify UW’s worldwide influence and academic significance,” stated Ahmad Ezzeddine, UW vice provost for Global Affairs. “The Fulbright program continues to be the leading international educational exchange initiative, promoting academic partnerships and cross-cultural appreciation for nearly eight decades.

“We appreciate the State Department’s ongoing commitment to this transformative initiative, which stands as one of our nation’s most effective means of citizen diplomacy,” Ezzeddine further noted. “Through these esteemed fellowships, our faculty will enhance their research and instructional endeavors on an international scale, while serving as representatives of American higher education and building connections with global communities.”

The Fulbright Scholar Program for academics and professionals facilitates the opportunity for over 800 individuals to teach and conduct research overseas. In February, the UW was acknowledged as a 2024-25 “Top Producer” of both Fulbright scholars and students.

The selected UW Fulbright Scholars for 2025-26 are:

Donatuto, serving as a clinical associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences within the UW School of Public Health. Additionally, she is affiliated with the UW Center for Disaster Resilient Communities. As an environmental social scientist, Donatuto has collaborated with communities, particularly Coast Salish Indigenous groups, for over twenty years.

She plans to utilize her Fulbright grant in Spain, collaborating with the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research organization in the country, to carry out a comparative study of human-ocean relationships in the northeastern Pacific and northwestern Mediterranean coastal areas. This research aims to address a data void identified by the United Nations’ Ocean Decade Vision Challenge—the deficiency of information regarding the human-ocean connection.

Gray is a professor in the Department of Pharmacy and the Plein Endowed Director of the Plein Center for Aging within the School of Pharmacy. Her research employs pharmacoepidemiology and health services studies to enhance medication management among the elder population. Emphasizing medication safety, she has conducted research demonstrating a link between high-risk, commonly used medications and incidents of falls, dementia, and physical performance in older individuals.

Gray will be hosted by the China Medical University (Taiwan) in the College of Pharmacy, pursuing a project titled “Adverse drug effects of medication use on sedentary time and physical activity in older adults.”

Kula serves as an associate professor of creative writing in the Department of Culture, Arts, and Communications at UW Tacoma. He teaches fiction and advanced fiction writing and consistently conducts a special topics class in playwriting. Together with other faculty members, he is working on developing a broader array of interdisciplinary writing courses in genres such as historical fiction, fantasy/science fiction, ecopoetry, and nature writing.

He has been chosen to be the Fulbright Writer-in-Residence at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. While there, in addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in AMU’s Center for the Affirmation of Literature, he will finalize research and revisions for his publication, “The Long Alone,” a creative nonfiction narrative chronicling the journey of Kazimierz Nowak, an amateur Polish journalist who cycled solo across Africa during the 1930s.

Weng is an assistant teaching professor in the Program on the Environment and the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. As a geographer, Weng investigates the intricate interactions between human communities and their environments. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Taiwan Studies Program.

Weng has received the Fulbright Teaching Award to instruct courses in geography, sustainability, environmental literature, and global environmental politics at Sophia University and Hosei University in Tokyo. Through her Fulbright initiative, Weng aims to convey the American perspective on environmental conservation, movements, and governance, fostering opportunities for reciprocal learning and progress in these domains.

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