Chemistry Student Wins Fulbright Program Award

Vishwas Rao, an undergraduate in the Department of Chemistry, is one of seven NC State students and alumni to receive a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award from the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. These individuals will receive funding to either conduct research or support the teaching of English in their host country for up to a year.

Rao is a Park Scholar who will earn a degree in May 2017 in chemistry, with minors in music and Spanish. He will be researching at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. His Fulbright project is titled “Identifying Potential Adjuvants for the Inhibition of Antibiotic Resistance Enzymes.”

Rao is also a 2016 Goldwater Scholar and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the University Honors Program. He has performed with the Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra and NC State Sangeet, an organization that supports South Asian arts, since 2014.

Fulbright Program awards are open to undergraduate and graduate students and alumni of all ages, and recipients are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement as well as record of service and leadership potential in their respective fields. Diversity in backgrounds and interests is encouraged, and prior experience abroad is not required.

The Fulbright Program, now celebrating its 70th anniversary, is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to build lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Over 370,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists have used the award to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

(More information at Fellowship Advising Office)