Art interventions, freedom of expression and extreme sports are just some of the fields of research for ten recipients of exchange awards to the United States of America announced by Fulbright New Zealand today.

Art interventions, freedom of expression and extreme sports are just some of the fields of research for ten recipients of exchange awards to the United States of America announced by Fulbright New Zealand today. The recipients of various awards under Fulbright New Zealand’s senior scholar programme will research and/or lecture in their specialist fields at universities of their choice across the US.

Sculptor Paul Cullen, a Senior Lecturer in Visual Arts at AUT University, has been awarded one of six 2012 Fulbright New Zealand Senior Scholar Awards to research collaborative and non-gallery public art practises at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, in the first phase of a collaborative sculpture/design intervention with Dr Rob Barnett from Auburn’s School of Architecture for the ArtWeb Alabama project. The collaboration will ultimately result in a sculptural installation and public exhibition in Alabama in late 2013.

Husband and wife Andrew Geddis and Jacinta Ruru from the University of Otago’s Faculty of Law have both received awards to research different aspects of law at US universities. Andrew, who obtained an LLM from Harvard University as a 1997 Fulbright New Zealand Graduate Student, has been awarded a Fulbright New Zealand Senior Scholar Award to conduct a socio-legal study of freedom of expression in New Zealand, with a particular focus on the freedom to dissent. He will undertake research at both Arizona State University in Tempe and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Jacinta has been awarded the 2012 Fulbright-Nga Pae o te Maramatanga Senior Scholar Award to research indigenous challenges to Western property law, at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon and Arizona State University in Tempe. She will focus on how property law could be recalibrated to better accommodate indigenous claims to Crown or publicly owned lands and natural resources.

Former competitive snowboarder Holly Thorpe, a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Leisure Studies at the University of Waikato, is one of two academics selected for the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Award in New Zealand Studies, a semester-long teaching and research position based at Georgetown University’s Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies in Washington, DC. Holly will research children and young persons’ involvement in extreme sports, while teaching an undergraduate course on sport in New Zealand society.

The remaining Fulbright New Zealand senior scholars will similarly conduct three to five month exchanges relevant to their expertise and interests.

2012 Fulbright New Zealand Senior Scholar Awards:

• Fiona Cowles from the University of Otago will research the cellular function of the COMMD10 protein, at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas.
• Paul Cullen from AUT University will research collaborative and non-gallery public art practises as part of a sculpture/design intervention for the ArtWeb Alabama project, at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama.
• Jennifer Curtin from the University of Auckland will research career pathways of women politicians in Westminster countries and the US, at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
• Andrew Geddis from the University of Otago will research the socio-legal history of freedom of expression in New Zealand, at Arizona State University in Tempe and the University of California, Los Angeles.
• Frances Hughes from Porirua will research the preparation of health professionals for psychosocial response to natural disasters, at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey.
• Shane Telfer from Massey University will research carbon dioxide capture by metal-organic frameworks, at the University of California, Berkeley.

2012 Fulbright Visiting Scholar Awards in New Zealand Studies:

• John Hopkins from the University of Canterbury will research the Administrative Procedure Act and the US system of federalism, and teach a course on comparative global constitutionalism from a Pacific viewpoint, at Georgetown University in Washington, DC for their Spring 2012 semester.
• Holly Thorpe from the University of Waikato will research children and young persons’ involvement in extreme sports, and teach a course on sport in New Zealand society, at Georgetown University in Washington, DC for their Fall 2012 semester.

2012 Fulbright-Nga Pae o te Maramatanga Senior Scholar Award:

• Jacinta Ruru from the University of Otago will research indigenous challenges to Western property law, at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon and Arizona State University in Tempe.

2012 Fulbright-Cognition Scholar Awards in Education Research:

• Kate Thornton from Victoria University of Wellington will research mentoring and coaching of teachers and educational leaders, at the University of California, Santa Cruz.