Anna Waller, ('20, PhD, Chemistry) has been selected as a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador. Fulbright Alumni Ambassadors represent the program's rich diversity and play a key role in increasing knowledge about Fulbright opportunities. They provide testimonials about their Fulbright experiences at conferences and campus presentations and offer application tips in written articles, video and podcast interviews, webinars and at special events throughout the United States. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program relies on the Fulbright Alumni Ambassadors to assist potential applicants, sharing what a Fulbright grant is really like, along with how to address the challenges of living abroad successfully and how best to meet the Fulbright Program's ultimate goal—to increase mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and the people of other countries.

During her Fulbright in Mexico in 2018-2019, Anna worked in collaboration with la Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro to develop a smartphone app and sensor to quantify iron in corn flour samples. She worked with local Mexican corn flour companies to obtain samples both directly from processing plants and market retail locations. Collecting samples took her not only to various markets and companies in her host city of Querétaro, but also to markets in other regions in Mexico such as Saltillo, Cuetzalan, and Cuautitlán Izcalli. Her Fulbright research grant work contributed to her PhD in Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Currently, Anna is a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC. 

Visit the Fulbright Alumni Ambassadors page to learn more about the ambassador program.

For more information about Fulbright scholarships, see the listing in the Graduate College's Fellowship Finder.