Distinguished scholars to teach, perform research, experience cultural exchange

Four University faculty members have been awarded prestigious Fulbright grants during the 2007-08 academic year including Kate Berry, Andrei Derevianko, Pauline Filemoni and Bob Ives. Recipients have demonstrated academic or professional achievement and leadership potential in their field.

A Fulbright grant is supporting Berry’s research as she examines instances of participation in water governance in India’s western Rajasthan state and in the Jordan River basin. She is an associate professor of geography.

Berry will be in Rajasthan for three months followed by three months in Israel, where the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies is located.

Ives, an assistant professor of educational specialties, will teach, perform research and consult on three projects in Romania. He will help the country’s public schools standardize broad-based intelligence tests to determine eligibility for special education services.

Ives will also participate in a study assessing textbook-readability indexes and formulas. The results will help teachers determine work assignments and contribute to textbook development.

He will also collect oral histories from Romanian families — and mothers in particular — who have either adult or preschool children with developmental delays. These families have developed their own private programs to provide services for their children that are not available through public programs.

Derevianko, an associate professor of physics, will carry out his project, “Variation of Fundamental Constructs of Physics,” to analyze recent data on the supposed variation of fundamental constants of nature over time and space.

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs sponsors the Fulbright Program, America’s flagship, international educational exchange program. The program operates in more than 150 countries.

For more information, visit www.unr.edu.