Most applicants to the Fulbright Program apply with the intention of going abroad. But for Diana Lopez, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University, her intention was to return to her homeland of Colombia.
As a dual citizen, Lopez was born in Colombia but pursued higher education in the United States. She’s spent the past few years conducting research as an FSU postdoctoral scholar at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in the Republic of Panama investigating the different mechanisms that enable corals to thrive and acclimate to stressors related to climate. Now, Lopez is taking her research to the coast of Colombia through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.
Fulbright U.S. Scholars are faculty, researchers, administrators and established professionals teaching or conducting research in affiliation with institutions abroad. Fulbright Scholars 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.
“I’ve always wanted to come back home and do research and connect with the researchers in this area,” Lopez said. “We get to do such cool science, and it’s good to connect with international partners.”
Her project has taken her to the Pacific coast of Colombia to Gorgona Island, a national park listed in the International Union for Conservation (IUCN) green list of protected and conserved areas, which previously served as a prison. There, Lopez is studying the response of coral composition to dynamic changes in environmental conditions.
Specifically, the project focuses on the resilience of coral and its susceptibility to bleaching while also considering the role of climate in the coral environment. It looks at coral’s specific acclimation capacities to light as a way to see how different but closely related coral species use light to photosynthesize.
“I’m looking at how they respond physiologically and their metabolic responses as well,” Lopez said.
After graduating with her doctorate in biology from Temple University in 2020, Lopez wanted to conduct research on the resilience of coral reefs in the Tropical Eastern Pacific. She targeted the Pacific Ocean of Panama given the dominant coral species in the region. While looking for funding opportunities, she was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Ocean Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship.
She made her way to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and began working on a project assessing how coral responds to different environmental stresses like high temperatures and variations in salinity. She began her appointment with FSU in 2022 and received continued support for her project through FSU’s Provost Postdoctoral Fellowship (PPFP).
Since returning to Colombia as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, Lopez has valued the opportunity to connect and collaborate with peers in her field, saying it’s the most memorable aspect of her time abroad so far.
“I’m connecting with the people that I’m working with here and collaborating with the local public university, Universidad del Valle, to become a bridge to these different research teams that have similar interests,” she said.
For faculty members or postdoctoral scholars considering applying to the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, Lopez prompts them to ask themselves how they’ll be a liaison between local researchers and their host institutions.
“What you can do in six months is going to be very limited, but if you think about the future, then you can continue that collaboration,” she said. “I think that’s the whole point of Fulbright.”
The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs recently recognized FSU as a Fulbright Top-Producing Institution among the colleges and universities nationwide with the highest numbers of faculty and administrators selected for the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.
If you are a faculty member interested in applying for a Fulbright, contact Peggy Wright-Cleveland, director of Faculty Development, at mwrightc@fsu.edu. If you are an undergraduate student interested in applying for a Fulbright, reach out to Jesse Wieland, associate director of the Office of National Fellowships, at awieland@fsu.edu. If you are a graduate student interested in applying for a Fulbright, contact Keith McCall, assistant director of the Office of Graduate Fellowships and Awards, at kmccall2@fsu.edu.
For more information about the Department of Biological Science at FSU, visit bio.fsu.edu.