Purchase College Announces Three Fulbright Award Winners

The U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board have announced that Professor Laura Ricciardi, senior Caleb Dowden, and recent alumnus William Byram ‘20 of Purchase College have received Fulbright U.S. Program awards.

Professor Laura Ricciardi, who is an Assistant Professor of Arts Management, has received a Fulbright Scholar award to spend the 2021-2022 academic year teaching at the University of Messina in Sicily, Italy. She will be teaching a course on comparative intellectual property and cultural heritage law and also conducting research on fascist-era monuments throughout Italy, bringing her work on the legal landscape of contested monuments in the United States into a global context.

Caleb Dowden, a senior dance major, will spend next year in Benin, West Africa where she will study how movement can reclaim history while linking the African Diaspora with the African Continent. Her overall aspiration as an artist is to create a dance company whose work is a physical embodiment of her ancestry, drawing on both popular forms and traditional Vodun spiritual practices, with a particular focus on gender. She hopes to use her research as a foundation for creating choreography to educate youth about their history through dance by making the work accessible to inner-city youth within low-income African American communities, as well as to mainstream audiences. As a complement to her research, Caleb will teach dance courses at Centre Wâlo and work with the Wâlo dance troupe, which is devoted to youth education through dance.

William Byram, who graduated in 2020 from Purchase’s Conservatory of Dance, will pursue an MFA in Choreography at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in the United Kingdom. His proposed thesis project will focus on adapting a 1999 Human Rights Watch interview on men’s experiences with sexual assault.

Provost Barry Pearson congratulates Professor Ricciardi, William, and Caleb. He also sends his congratulations to the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase, including its Director, Nelly Van Bommel. “The Conservatory of Dance not only trains students to dance at the highest caliber, but it also attracts and cultivates fully fledged, extraordinary creative artists like William Byram and Caleb Dowden.” Provost Pearson hopes that other students will be inspired by their achievements, underscoring the College’s commitment “to continue to support students from across campus to garner the recognition they richly deserve as future Fulbright awardees.”

Purchase College President Dr. Milagros Peña received the Fulbright-Hays/Garcia Robles Research Award for her work studying Latina activists in Mexico and Texas. Dr. Peña said, “I’m proud to welcome Professor Ricciardi, Caleb Dowden, and William Byram to the ranks of Fulbright awardees at Purchase College. Their work represents the very best of our community of interdisciplinary artists and scholars who are drawing important connections between the arts and social issues. I look forward to following their progress on these important projects.”

As Fulbright Scholars, Professor Ricciardi, Caleb Dowden, and William Byram will share knowledge and foster meaningful connections across communities in the United States, Benin, and the United Kingdom. Fulbrighters engage in cutting-edge research and expand their professional networks, often continuing research collaborations started abroad and laying the groundwork for forging future partnerships between institutions. Upon returning to their home countries, institutions, labs, and classrooms, they share their stories and often become active supporters of international exchange, inviting foreign scholars to campus and encouraging colleagues and students to go abroad. As Fulbright Scholar alumni, their careers are enriched by joining a network of thousands of esteemed scholars, many of whom are leaders in their fields. Fulbright alumni include 60 Nobel Prize laureates, 86 Pulitzer Prize recipients, and 37 who have served as a head of state or government.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to forge lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries, counter misunderstandings, and help people and nations work together toward common goals. Since its establishment in 1946, the Fulbright Program has enabled more than 390,000 dedicated and accomplished students, scholars, artists, teachers, and professionals of all backgrounds to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and find solutions to shared international concerns. The Fulbright Program is funded through an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the Program, which operates in more than 160 countries worldwide.

For further information about the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State, please visit http://eca.state.gov/fulbright or contact the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Press Office by telephone 202-632-6452 or e-mail ECA-Press@state.gov.

About Purchase College, SUNY

Purchase College, part of the State University of New York (SUNY) network of 64 universities and colleges, was founded in 1967 by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. His aspiration for Purchase was to create a dynamic campus that combined conservatory training in the visual and performing arts with programs in the liberal arts and sciences, in order to inspire an appreciation for both intellectual and artistic talents in all students. Today, Purchase College–SUNY is a community of students, faculty, and friends where open-minded engagement with the creative process leads to a lifetime of intellectual growth and professional opportunity. For more information about the College, visit www.purchase.edu.