Fulbright Alumni in Public Service

The Fulbright Program has provided exchange opportunities for current and future public servants and community leaders in the United States and in partner nations, developing their leadership skills and inspiring a desire to serve their countries and communities. Fulbright alumni work towards positive change through government and public service, creating a more prosperous and peaceful future.

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Hammad Hammad business headshot

Hammad Hammad (2008 Fulbright U.S. Student to The Netherlands) is a U.S. diplomat and educator who has served at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., and at U.S. embassies and offices in Venezuela, Tunisia, and Mexico. He currently serves as an Alternate Permanent Representative to the UN Agencies in Rome. He most recently served as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State. Hammad has also taught courses in international relations and U.S. diplomacy as a State Department Rusk Fellow Practitioner-in-Residence at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. As a Fulbright student in the Netherlands, he studied the differences between American and European approaches to ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, focusing on Palestinian refugees. Hammad also completed a master’s degree in Conflict Studies and Human Rights at the University of Utrecht. He is the co-founder and president of Inspire Dreams, a non-profit organization that draws upon academics, athletics, and the arts to promote alternative methods of self-expression for Palestinian refugees. He holds a master’s degree in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree in international politics from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. 

Featured Alumni

James Anderson (2018 Fulbright U.S. Student to Canada), Special Assistant to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, served for 11 years in the U.S. Air Force and as an intelligence officer at U.S Air Forces Central Command prior to his Fulbright in Canada. He was a Visiting Fulbright Fellow in Canadian-American relations at the Centre for International and Defence Policy, concurrently working toward a second master’s degree at Queens University, Ontario. He founded the University of South Carolina’s Veterans Alumni Council and has served as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador, hoping to inspire other veterans and people of color to apply to the Fulbright Program. 

Eileen Decker

Eileen Decker (2018 Fulbright U.S. Specialist to Iceland), president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, has had a varied career in public service specializing in public safety and homeland security issues, including serving as Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles and U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. She has also been a law professor at the University of Southern California, University of California, Los Angeles Law School, and Pepperdine Law School and served as a law clerk in the Central District of California. As a Fulbright Specialist in cybersecurity law and policy, she traveled overseas to lecture and consult on issues of importance to foreign institutions and governments.

Nadia Ramirez Dominguez (2014 Fulbright U.S. Student to South Korea), a U.S. Foreign Service Officer currently serving as a vice consul in Argentina, realized the power of public diplomacy when she volunteered to teach English to North Korean defectors while serving as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) in South Korea, drawing on her own experience emigrating from Colombia. Inspired to pursue a career in the U.S. Foreign Service, she received a Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Fellowship to pursue a master’s in public administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. 

Na Eng (1999 Fulbright U.S. Student to Zimbabwe) is an Emmy Award-Winning journalist who is currently Communications Director at the McKnight Foundation. On her Fulbright program in Zimbabwe, she created an impactful documentary that was screened at the 2001 New York African Film Festival. During her two decades as a journalist, she earned an Emmy and numerous other national awards as a producer for the weekly public affairs show NOW on PBS and the documentary unit at CNBC. She is using her storytelling talents as a senior leader of the McKnight Foundation, which grants $100 million annually to advance a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive. 

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Austan Goolsbee

Austan Goolsbee (2007 Fulbright U.S. Scholar to the United Kingdom) is an American economist, professor, and writer who served as the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and as a member of President Barack Obama's cabinet before returning to the University of Chicago to teach the next generation of economists at the Booth School of Business. He serves on the Economic Advisory Panel to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, leads the Economic Intelligence practice at 32 Advisors, and is an economics consultant to ABC News. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the London School of Economics and the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London. 

Yoko Kamikawa (1988 Fulbright Student from Japan), currently serving as Japan’s Minister of Justice for the third time, has held leadership roles under several different Japanese administrations and was elected five times to Japan’s House of Representatives. She was Minister of State for Gender Equality and Social Affairs in the cabinets of Presidents Shinzō Abe and Yasuo Fukuda. After earning a degree in international relations from Tokyo University, she came to the United States as a Fulbrighter to earn a master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. 

Thomas Pickering (1954 Fulbright U.S. Student to Australia) advanced diplomacy and mutual understanding around the world during a diplomatic career that spanned four decades before retiring with the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest title in the U.S. Foreign Service. After earning a second master’s degree on his Fulbright to Australia, he served in the U.S. Navy and then at the U.S. Department of State, where he held numerous senior positions, including Ambassador to El Salvador, India, Israel, Jordan, Nigeria, Russia, and the United Nations. In 1997, he was appointed as Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the third-highest post in the Department of State. 

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Javier Solana (1966 Fulbright Student from Spain), currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution and president of the Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics in Barcelona, is a Spanish and European diplomat who has used his professional career in academia and government to advocate for international cooperation among European nations, the United States, and the world. He was Foreign Affairs Minister of Spain, Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Secretary General of the Council of the European Union. As a Fulbright Student in 1966, he completed his doctorate in physics at the University of Virginia, where he taught physics classes and conducted research while serving as president of the Association of Foreign Students.  

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