Eight RISD Alums Advance Cross-Cultural Dialogue as Fulbright US Student Awardees

Since its inception in 1946, the Fulbright US Student Program has promoted international exchange as both a form of political diplomacy and an unparalleled educational opportunity for college graduates. RISD’s Fulbright Program, led by Program Advisor Lisa Cramer, has consistently produced an impressive number of Fulbrights each year, and this year’s cohort of eight is its largest ever.

This year’s Fulbrights traveled to their host countries in early autumn and plan to return to the US in the spring. Five of them are conducting research, teaching English, and/or collaborating with arts institutions in Europe, and three are working further afield in Vietnam, Japan, and Taiwan.

“I have wanted to be a Fulbright grantee since I learned that I wanted to teach,” says alum Sylvia Rodriquez 23 IL/MAT 24, who earned her BFA in Illustration and a graduate teaching certificate from the Teaching + Learning in Art + Design (TLAD) department. “As a Spanish-as-a-second-language speaker who grew up learning Spanish in middle and high school, choosing to teach English in Spain was a no-brainer!”

Like Rodriguez, Brown | RISD Dual Degree Program alum Eugene Rhee BRDD 23 ID was drawn to her host country by the opportunity to work with young students. Rhee is in France exploring how researchers, educators, and school-age children can work together to build community and share science with a wider audience. Her project is asking fundamental questions about the relationship between science and play and how to move meaningful scientific discoveries from the lab to the mainstream.

Further south in Rome, Italy, painter Itzhak Fant 22 PT is traveling back in time to chart the life of Antinous, Emperor Hadrian’s lover who died mysteriously in the Nile some 1,900 years ago. “Using his life as a guide, I am addressing urgent contemporary questions of desire, immigration, and the role of history in our lives,” Fant explains. Working in collaboration with the Nuova Accademia delle Belle Arti (NABA) Roma, he is tapping contemporary art methodologies—such as the appropriation of found images and the disruption of the figure-ground relationship—to create paintings and poetry reflecting on Antinous’ identity.

Textiles alum Zahra Tyebjee MFA 22 TX is conducting research rooted firmly in the present day in the island archipelago of the Azores off Portugal. Her project, Haptic Witnessing: The Sensory Experience of Basket Weaving, explores Azorean basket weaving, an artisanal craft that relies entirely on locally grown materials. In collaboration with contemporary arts organization Anda&Fala and the Crafts and Design Centre of the Azores, she intends to “combine local plants and weaving techniques in new ways to create an array of tactile textures that bring emotional resonance to materials.”

In Ireland, photographer Drew Leventhal MFA 22 PH is shining a light on a marginalized Indigenous community known as the Travellers. He is working directly with community members in the Dublin area to make work that accurately reflects the art that Travellers are making about their own identity. “Together, we will examine how a collaborative photographic process can provide an avenue for connection and cross-cultural understanding,” Leventhal says.

More than 6,000 miles away in Taiwan, Furniture Design alum Häli Barthel 20 FD is mixing materiality with sustainability, working with local artists and designers to develop unique furniture pieces featuring recycled plastics and traditional Taiwanese bark cloth. “Contextualizing new materials within the framework of the traditional will offer valuable insights into Taiwan’s evolving material landscape,” says Barthel. 

Alum Rene Camarillo MFA 25 TX is also tapping local traditions by developing an apparel collection intended to highlight the migration of Chicano culture into Japan. He is working closely with fashion designer and educator Mitsuhiro Kokita and indigo dye master Kenta Watanabe. His plan is to study traditional Sukumo dye making and then use the technique on his own hand-woven twills. “The culmination of my Fulbright research project will be a showcase of my collection in Kyoto, Japan and at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles upon my return,” Camarillo notes.

Approximately 2,400 miles southwest, in Vietnam, Printmaking alum Sophia Brown 22 PR is studying historical Vietnamese map-making techniques. “Maps are a unique, interdisciplinary form of media that can reinvigorate notions of history and culture,” she explains. “They have the power to influence viewers’ understanding of the Vietnamese identity.”

Simone Solondz
January 14, 2026