UT Southwestern honored for Fulbright student involvement
DALLAS – April 14, 2022 – UT Southwestern Medical Center is among the Top Producing Institutions of 2021-2022 Fulbright Students in the U.S., and one of the top producers of U.S. Fulbright students among 4-year, special-focus institutions.
The Fulbright U.S. Scholar and Fulbright U.S. Student Programs, sponsored by the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, provide grants to students, faculty members, scientists, and others to support academic exchanges between the United States and more than 150 countries based on academic merit and leadership potential.
“This achievement is a testament to your institution’s deep commitment to international exchange and to building lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s place among the Fulbright Program’s 2021-2022 Top Producing Institutions clearly demonstrates your dedication to preparing Americans to thrive in the global economy and serve as engaged citizens,” U.S. Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken wrote in a congratulatory letter to Daniel K. Podolsky, M.D., President of UT Southwestern Medical Center.
“The number of Fulbright Scholars and Students over the years – along with other prestigious scholarships and honors earned by our learners, trainees, and faculty – reflects the high quality of UT Southwestern’s education mission, as well as on the physicians and scientists who matriculate from our programs,” said Dr. W. P. Andrew Lee, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost, and Dean, UT Southwestern Medical School.
UT Southwestern’s involvement in the Fulbright program launched with Adolph Giesecke Jr., M.D., an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, working at the Univesitat Mainz in Germany for the 1970-71 academic year. Over the decades, UT Southwestern’s Fulbright students and scholars have spanned nearly a dozen countries from New Zealand to Germany, including its most recent Fulbright Students: Kaley Desher, who recently matched in Pediatrics to Emory, and Angela Wang, who continues her investigations on campus.
“These are stellar students who are going to make an impact in whatever they do,” said Mary Chang, M.D., Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine who leads Global Health Education in UT Southwestern’s Office of Global Health, which has supported global health activities for more than 833 students in 35 countries since 2010.
The Fulbright citation complements other institutional recognitions for UT Southwestern’s educational mission:
- UT Southwestern Medical School ranked 16th for primary care and 25th for research in the United States, according to U.S. News & World Report’s recent 2023 Best Graduate Schools rankings.
- UT Southwestern is rated No. 3 in the nation on Forbes’ list of America’s Best Employers For New Graduates, placing it in the top 1 percent, and highest among academic medical centers.
- UT Southwestern is rated No. 1 among global health care institutions in the 2021 Nature Index for its published research.
The institution’s faculty has received six Nobel Prizes and includes 25 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 16 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators.
UT Southwestern has significantly expanded its educational portfolio in 2022 with the creation this year of the Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health, which received with a $100 million gift from the O’Donnell Foundation to accelerate its momentum – the largest gift to a School of Public Health at a public university in the U.S. and matching the third largest gift supporting any School of Public Health. The O’Donnell School of Public Health is UT Southwestern’s fourth in addition to its Medical School, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and School of Health Professions.
UT Southwestern also launched a new Department of Biomedical Engineering that will complement a new $120-million, five-story Texas Instruments Biomedical Engineering and Sciences Building, which broke ground in November to house joint biomedical engineering programs at UT Dallas and UT Southwestern. The UTSW programs are part of the UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
In addition, the UT Southwestern School of Health Professions will launch a new Master of Genetic Counseling program next year to meet the projected growth of genetic medicine and support the development of genetic counseling services in key areas of prenatal, pediatric, adult, cancer, and cardiovascular care.
UT Southwestern Medical Center also recently completed a five-year, $1 billion campaign to fuel its commitment to advance brain research and clinical care at its Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, making it one of the largest brain-focused investments at a U.S. academic medical center.
U.S. News ranks UT Southwestern among the top 25 hospitals nationally in eight specialties earlier in its annual Best Hospitals report, and ranks as the No. 1 hospital in Dallas-Fort Worth – the nation’s fourth-largest metro area – with the top-ranked programs for cardiology and heart surgery, and neurology and neurosurgery in Texas. UT Southwestern also is ranked among Newsweek’s World's Best Hospitals 2022 list, was selected as a Rare Disease Center of Excellence – charter members of an elite network of 31 centers nationally to expand access, and advance care and research for rare disease patients in the United States, and is one of the 10 best large employers in the United States and among the top 5 health care employers, according to the America’s Best Employers 2022 list compiled by Forbes and Statista.
About UT Southwestern Medical Center
UT Southwestern, one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution’s faculty has received six Nobel Prizes and includes 25 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 16 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time faculty of more than 2,800 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care in more than 80 specialties to more than 117,000 hospitalized patients, more than 360,000 emergency room cases, and oversee nearly 3 million outpatient visits a year.