The United States Educational Foundation in Pakistan (USEFP) celebrates 75 years of the Fulbright Program and 70 years of the commission in 2021.

Fulbright Pakistan Launches Fulbright Talks Season 2

To mark the 75 years of the Fulbright Program and 70 years of the United States Educational Foundation in Pakistan (USEFP), season 2 of the Fulbright Talks has been launched - featuring exceptional alumni and their achievements. Fulbright alumni are blazing new paths in diverse fields and contributing to the socio-economic development of Pakistan. The twenty-two-part video series releases weekly, highlighting alumni's work and research in education, health, energy, human rights, climate change, entrepreneurship, and the arts.

Link to the videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaW9ggcwoYKbbbrE5arVkXDOKzMAfnvpO 

Alums Bring Home Prestigious Google Research Scholar Award

Fulbright alumni Dr. Mohsen Ali and Dr. Izza Aftab, both professors at the Information Technology University in Lahore, have bagged the coveted Google Research Scholar Award worth USD 60,000 – and they are the only Pakistanis to have won this year.

The 2021 Google Research Scholar Award supports early-career faculty who are doing impactful research. The winning project, for which Dr. Ali is the Principal Investigator (PI) and Dr. Izza is the co-PI, is titled 'Is Economics from Afar Domain?'. It falls under the category of Machine Perception and involves designing interpretable machine learning algorithms to predict economic and development indicators of a region from satellite generalizable imagery and geo-spatial datasets.

14 Fulbright Alumni Appointed Vice Chancellors 

The Pakistani Fulbright alumni community represents a diverse and dynamic pool of professionals working in the field of higher education. 14 Fulbright scholars have been appointed as vice chancellors of leading public and private universities across Pakistan. As VCs, they are developing centers of excellence for imparting higher education, introducing diverse academic programs, and providing quality education and research opportunities to address global challenges.

U.S.-Pakistan Agreement Expands the Number of Pakistani PhD Students Studying in the U.S. on the Fulbright Program

In a step toward expanding U.S.-Pakistan educational cooperation, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the United States Educational Foundation in Pakistan (USEFP) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support 125 Pakistanis to pursue PhD studies in the United States, 25 per year for five years. The MoU extends an agreement that funded 125 Fulbright-HEC PhD scholarships between 2016 and 2020. Acting HEC Chairman Dr. Shaista Sohail and USEFP Executive Director Ms. Rita Akhtar signed the MoU on June 16, through which the Government of Pakistan will contribute USD 5 million per year to the Fulbright-HEC PhD Program.

As a symbol of binational cooperation, USEFP has been allotted one-acre land in Islamabad by the Government of Pakistan to build its first-ever head office. Located in the center of the capital, the head office will be accessible to students, Fulbright alumni, prospective applicants, and test-takers. Since 1950, the Commission has been operating from rented premises. We are pleased to unveil the exterior design of the office building on the occasion of the Fulbright Program’s 75th anniversary. The construction of the building will tentatively commence in November 2021.