Jonathan LoTempio Jr., a doctoral candidate in the genomics and bioinformatics program at the George Washington University Institute for Biomedical Science (IBS), received a grant through the Fulbright Schuman program to pursue research at the Institut für Höhere Studien (IHS) in Vienna, Austria, and Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB) in Belgium for the 2021-2022 academic year. At IHS, LoTempio will work within the Science, Technology, and Social Transformation Research Unit, and he’ll be seated at the Brussels School of Governance at VUB.
“The primary goal of this grant is research into data use, production, and sharing in large-scale EU programs and their compatibility with other U.S.- and internationally based efforts,” said LoTempio, whose proposed study is titled “EU and U.S. Science Diplomacy with an Eye to Africa.” His longer-term goal is “the study of the policy environment to which science, generally, and genomics, specifically, is subject to globally.”
LoTempio is the first IBS student to receive a grant from the Fulbright Schuman program, which awards scholarships to U.S. citizens to conduct research in the EU and, likewise, EU citizens to pursue research projects in the U.S. Since its inception in 1990, the program has provided grants to more than 400 American and European researchers and funded transatlantic research projects in fields including trade policy and biotechnology.
“I am thrilled to have this opportunity to build on the work that I started at GW on genomics and science diplomacy with partners in Africa,” LoTempio said. “It has been a whirlwind process, and I’m excited about what the future holds for this research.”
