A detective novel set in Szeged: A Life Less Damnable by Jack (Jon) Roberts (’02 Institute of English & American Studies, University of Szeged) is out now. Published in various formats by AMERICANA – E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary.

3 Fulbright alumni were elected members to the Academia Europaea, a membership by invitation organization at around 2,300 members:

• János Pintz (’99 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
• Gábor Stépán (’94 California Institute of Technology)
• András Váradi (’07 Thomas Jefferson University)

Earlier this month a Fulbright alumnus was awarded a Nobel Prize. Dr. Peter Higgs, most famously known for the Higgs Boson, was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar from the U.K. to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1965 and was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics on October 8. He is the 45th Fulbright alumnus to win a Nobel Prize.

The Fulbright EducationUSA Advising Center participated in the 11th annual Study Abroad Fair at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.

The Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies launched its 2013-2014 series of free public ‘Jazz Roundtables’ with Gábor Turi‘s (’13 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey) lecture entitled Jazz in East Europe During and After Communism. His articles on his grant period also appearing in the Hungarian Jazz portal: here and here.

The Hungarian-American Fulbright Commission and Southern Illinois University(SIU) are pleased to announce that they have signed an agreement to establish a jointly funded grant in water science for a student from Hungary starting in the Academic Year 2015-16.

In a ceremony held in Carbondale on October 10, Fulbright Executive Director Dr. Karoly Jokay was presented the agreement signed earlier on behalf of Southern Illinois University by Dr. Rita Cheng, Chancellor.

The Watershed Science student grant is for multidisciplinary studies in the broad areas of water science, an area of focused research and teaching expertise at SIU. Building on SIU’s IGERT project, Professor Nicholas Pinter would like to attract a Hungarian student from fields such as civil engineering, hydrology, biology, zoology, geographic information systems and others related to the study of rivers, watersheds, river restoration and sustainable biodiversity.

The grant will provide the student with full tuition, a housing and living stipend, start-up expenses, health insurance as well as travel expenses.

Jokay and Pinter hope that this opportunity will encourage Fulbright programs in other countries in the Tisza river basin (Serbia, Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia) to establish similar grants with SIU in the near future.

The grant will be announced in February, 2014 with an anticipated application deadline of mid-May, 2014, for the Academic Year 2015-16.

The Commission organized a two-day visit to Košice, Slovakia and Sárospatak for U.S. Fulbright grantees on October 4-5, 2013. Košice is one of the 2013 European Capitals of Culture and was once an important Hungarian city called Kassa, while Sárospatak is another important city in the history of the Rákóczi family. The group accepted an invitation for wine tasting in the Bardon winery, Erdőbénye north of the town of Tokaj from the founders and students of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium.