June 30, 2025
Four UW researchers named Fulbright Scholars
Four UW faculty received Fulbright grants to conduct research abroad. From left to right: Jamie Donatuto, Shelly Gray, Michael Kula and Yen-Chu Weng.University of Washington
Four University of Washington researchers have been selected as Fulbright Scholars for 2025-2026 and will pursue studies in Spain, Taiwan, Poland and Japan.
The scholars are Jamie Donatuto, a clinical associate professor in the Department of Environment & Occupational Health Sciences; Shelly Gray, a professor in the School of Pharmacy; Michael Kula, an associate professor in 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 are college and university faculty, administrators, and researchers, as well as artists and professionals, who build their skills and connections, gain valuable international insights and return home to share their experiences with their students and colleagues.
“These four Fulbright awards are yet another example of UW’s global reach and scholarly impact,” said Ahmad Ezzeddine, UW vice provost for Global Affairs. “The Fulbright program remains the flagship international educational exchange program, fostering academic collaboration and cross-cultural understanding for nearly eight decades.
“We are grateful for the State Department’s continued investment in this transformative program, which serves as one of our nation’s most powerful tools of citizen diplomacy,” Ezzeddine continued. “Through these prestigious fellowships, our faculty will advance research and teaching on the global stage, while serving as ambassadors of American higher education and building bridges with communities worldwide.”
The Fulbright Scholar Program for academics and professionals supports more than 800 people to teach and conduct research abroad. In February, the UW was recognized as a 2024-25 “Top Producer” of both Fulbright scholars and students.
The UW Fulbright Scholar selectees for 2025-26 are:
Donatuto, a clinical associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences in the UW School of Public Health. She is also part of the UW Center for Disaster Resilient Communities. An environmental social scientist, Donatuto has worked with communities, particularly Coast Salish Indigenous communities, for more than two decades.
She will use her Fulbright award in Spain, where she will work with the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the nation’s largest public research institution, to implement a comparative analysis of human-ocean engagement in the northeast Pacific and northwest Mediterranean coast regions. The research will fill in a data gap identified by the United Nations’ Ocean Decade Vision Challenge — a lack of data describing the human-ocean connection.
Gray is a professor in the Department of Pharmacy and the Plein Endowed Director of the Plein Center for Aging in the School of Pharmacy. Her research uses pharmacoepidemiology and health services research to optimize medication use in older adults. With a focus on medication safety, she has conducted studies showing an association between high-risk common medications and fall injuries, dementia and physical performance in older adults.
Gray will be hosted by the China Medical University (Taiwan) in the College of Pharmacy. She will pursue a project entitled, “Adverse drug effects of medication use on sedentary time and physical activity in older adults.”
Kula is an associate professor of creative writing in the Department of Culture, Arts, and Communications at UW Tacoma. He teaches courses in fiction and advanced fiction writing and regularly teaches a special topics class in playwriting. In collaboration with other faculty, he is developing a wider set of interdisciplinary writing courses in areas like historical fiction, fantasy/science fiction, ecopoetry and nature writing.
He was selected to serve as 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 be completing final research and revisions for his book, “The Long Alone,” a creative nonfiction account of the travels of Kazimierz Nowak, an amateur Polish journalist who bicycled alone across Africa in 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’s work explores the dynamic relationships between human societies and the environment. She is also an affiliate faculty member with the Taiwan Studies Program.
She was awarded the Fulbright Teaching Award to teach courses in geography, sustainability, environmental literature and global environmental politics at Sophia University and Hosei University in Tokyo. Through her Fulbright project, Weng will share the American experience in environmental conservation, movements, and governance with students and scholars in Japan and to foster opportunities for mutual learning and advancement in these areas.
Tag(s): Ahmad Ezzeddine • College of the Environment • Fulbright Program • Jamie Donatuto • Michael Kula • Office of Global Affairs • School of Pharmacy • School of Public Health • Shelly Gray • UW Tacoma • Yen-Chu Weng