João Resende-Santos, an associate professor of international studies, has been honored with a 2024-2025 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award, a highly competitive and prestigious academic fellowship offered through the U.S. Department of State, to be a visiting researcher at LusoGlobe.
"As a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, Resende-Santos will spend part of the upcoming academic year at the LusoGlobe Research Center at the University of Lusófona in Lisbon, Portugal, examining newly declassified archives for his forthcoming book on U.S. foreign policy in response to the decolonization of Portugal’s African colonies from 1950 to 1975".
“The Fulbright fellowship is one of America’s oldest programs for international cultural and educational exchanges and I’m honored to join its global network of scholars,” he says. Crediting colleague Juliet Gainsborough, a professor of political science and chair of Bentley’s Global Studies department, for her steadfast support throughout the application and selection process, Resende-Santos observes that participating in the Fulbright Program is particularly meaningful given his academic discipline. The fellowships, which were established in 1976 to foster peaceful relations between America and other nations, constitute an “overlooked but important dimension of U.S. foreign policy and its so-called ‘soft power’ influence in the world,” he explains. “As someone who studies U.S. foreign policy, I’m honored to now become a part of it."