Fulbright Award
of Excellence
The Fulbright Recognition of Excellence is an award given to a Fulbright Alumni for outstanding work in their field and for their promotion of educational, cultural and mutual understanding between the United States and Colombia that contributes to innovation, science, peace-building, economic and social development in Colombia.
Each year, Commission partners, members of the Fulbright community, the Fulbright Board of Directors, and Fulbright staff nominate those who best represent the values of the program.
Fulbright Saldarriaga Concha 2011 Award - Master's in Communication from the University of Florida
Adriana has a degree in Philology and Languages from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and a Master’s degree in Communication from the University of Florida (United States). She is currently the Advisor in Social Inclusion of the Physical Rehabilitation Program at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and is also Ambassador for Colombia of OrCam Technologies where she works to promote artificial intelligence that provides greater autonomy to visually impaired people, allowing them to improve their quality of life.
Adriana worked at the Ministry of Information, Technologies and Communications (MinTIC), where she promoted projects that foster the inclusion of people with disabilities through the use and application of technologies. One such project is ConverTIC: a pioneer initiative worldwide that allows blind and low vision people to use the computer autonomously thanks to the free download and installation of screen reader and magnifier software.
She has worked as a university professor and lecturer on issues of inclusion, accessibility and universal design. Additionally, she is an activist for the rights and inclusion of people with disabilities and is part of the Network of Women with Visual Impairment, which promotes the empowerment and social inclusion of women who are blind or have reduced vision in Colombia.
Fulbright Award for
Excellence 2007 - 2020
J. Wlliam Fulbright Scholarship, 1958, PhD in civil Engineering
Dr. Forero is a Civil Engineer from the Institut National de Sciences Appliquées – INSA (Lyon, France) with a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University. Since 2001 he has served as a professor at the Universidad de los Andes and is one of the 42 members of the Misión de Sabios appointed by President Iván Duque to work on the development of Science, Technology and Innovation in the country, specifically forming the group in the field of Social Sciences for human development and equity.
Dr. Forero has also served as a professor at the Universidad Nacional, a visiting professor at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, the president of the National Council of Participatory Planning of Bogota (1990) and the general director of Colciencias. He has made significant contributions in scientific studies on public policy; public administration studies; innovation and industry; violence, insecurity and contingent cooperation; organizational hybrids, conflict and regional development.
Among the honors received by Dr. Clemente, both nationally and internationally, we can highlight: Emeritus Researcher recognized by Colciencias – Call 737 of 2015; Honorary Professor, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1999; Palmes Académiques, government of France, 1995; Simon Bolivar Award for Economic Journalism, Seguros Bolivar, 1978 and University Merit Medal.
Fulbright ICETEX Scholarship, 1990, Master in Computer Science
Dr. Jaramillo-Botero is an Electrical Engineer from Boston University (1986), who earned a Master in Computer Science as a Fulbright Scholar from the State University of New York (1990), and PhD in Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (1998). He developed his doctoral dissertation as a visiting researcher at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) between 1996-1997, and postdoctoral work in Nanoscale Science as an NSF (US National Science Foundation) grantee, at Caltech and at the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), between 2002 and 2005.
Dr. Jaramillo-Botero joined Caltech full time in 2006 as a Research Scientist and as Director of Multiscale Science and Simulation in the Materials and Process Simulation Center (MSC) of the Chemistry Division. There, he has been a leader/co-leader in multiple U.S. government funded research programs (DOE, DOD, DOT, NSF and NASA, among other national agencies) and applied research efforts funded by national and international industry, as well as authored numerous peer-reviewed scientific publications and patents.
Dr. Jaramillo-Botero has been a member of the academic community of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (PUJ) since 1990, where he achieved tenured professorship in 1999, and was admitted to the Javeriana honor society in 2001.
Fulbright LASPAU Scholarship, 1991, Master in Conservation and Development
Brigitte graduated with a degree in Biology from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and a Masters of Arts in Latin American Studies from the University of Florida. She worked as a researcher at the Rural Studies Unit of the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the Universidad Javeriana, where she also began her teaching career in the Rural Development and Environmental Management Master’s programs. She has participated in numerous national projects on conservation and environmental planning, cultural landscapes, analysis of territorial transformation processes, ecological-economic history of productive systems, multicultural analysis of biodiversity use and management, biocomplexity, biospeleology, and biopolitics. She is also interested in gender and culture. She was director of the Humboldt Institute, representing at that time the scientific authority of Colombia before the International Convention for the Trade of Wildlife (CITES, as its acronym in Spanish). She currently serves as president of the Universidad EAN, becoming the first transgender woman in the country to hold that position.Fulbright-Fletcher Fellowship 1980, Inv & Doc Public Administration
Juan Manuel Santos, Fulbright alumnus, President of Colombia (2010- 2014, 2014-2018) and Nobel Peace Laureate, in 1981 Santos was a recipient of the Fulbright Fletcher Visiting Fellows Program, a professional development program that allowed him to take graduate classes in public administration at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Harvard University and M.I.T.
In 2007, he was the special guest at the Fulbright Award Ceremony, where he stated that Fulbright’s work is “a priceless contribution” because “the best contribution one can make to a country is its human capital, its education.”
He is an economist and business administrator from the University of Kansas, with graduate studies in economics and economic development from the London School of Economics, and was also a fellow of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Throughout his career he has held a number of public positions. For 9 years he represented the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia before the International Coffee Organization in London, he was deputy director of El Tiempo and Minister of Foreign Trade in 1991. In 2000 he was appointed Minister of Finance. In 2006 he was appointed Minister of Defense until May 2009, when he retired to become a presidential candidate.
J. Wlliam Fulbright Scolarship, 2010, Master in Law
Dr. Helena Alviar García is a lawyer from Universidad de los Andes, specialized in Financial Law from the same University. She holds a Master’s Degree in Law and a PhD in Economic Law and Gender from Harvard Law School, Cambridge – Massachusetts. She was a recipient of the Fulbright award between 1996 and 1997, during which time she completed her graduate studies at Harvard University. She has taught and lectured at several universities, among them: Harvard Law School, Brown University, University of Wisconsin, Madison, University of Torino in Italy, and the Universidad para La Paz in Costa Rica. In August 2001, she joined the Los Andes Law School as a full professor. She was Dean of the School of Law of the Universidad de los Andes and is currently a full professor at the same university.Hubert H, Humphrey Fellowship, 2010, Inv &Doc Urban/Regional Planning
Paula Moreno is a 2010 Hubert H. Humphrey Fulbright Alumni, who trained in Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In addition, she was the youngest minister in the history of Colombia and the first Afro-Colombian woman to hold a ministerial position. Among her awards are the Cross of Boyacá and the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest distinctions of the Colombian and Mexican governments, respectively. In 2014, she was selected by the BBC as one of the 100 most important women in the world and, likewise, SEMANA magazine and the Fundación Liderazgo y Democracia awarded her in the same year the recognition as one of the most important leaders in the country. She is currently a founding partner and president of the Organización Manos Visibles (Visible Hands Organization).
J. Wlliam Fulbright Scolarship, 1972, Master in Financial Law
Juan Carlos Esguerra is a lawyer from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, a graduate in Socioeconomic Sciences from the same university and a Master of Laws (LLM) from Cornell University. In addition to having served as Minister of Justice and Law, he was Secretary General and Vice Minister of Communications, Delegate to the National Constitutional Assembly, Minister of National Defense and Ambassador of Colombia to the U.S. government between 1997 and 1998. From 1991 to 1995 he was Dean of the Faculty of Juridical Sciences of the Universidad Javeriana. Since 1992, he has also been a member of the Advisory Council of the Cornell University Law School. On two occasions (2004 and 2006) he has been Judge ad hoc of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and has served several times as co-judge of the Council of State and the Constitutional Court.Fulbright LASPAU Scholarship, 1988, PhD in Education
Dr. Pedro Obando was born in Pasto in 1947 and graduated in modern languages from the University of Nariño. He completed a Master’s degree in Linguistics at Southern Illinois University, thanks to a Fulbright award, and a Ph.D. in Ethnolinguistics at the University of Texas. In 2011 he completed a Master’s degree in politics from the Universidad Externado de Colombia. Most of his career has been spent within the Universidad de Nariño system, first as director of the University’s lyceum, then as Head of the Language Department and Dean of the Faculty of Education, and finally as academic and administrative vice-president. In 1995 he was appointed president of the University, and was in office for a decade, being recognized for having transformed the university into a quality institution, for increasing its infrastructure and for having instituted a direct election of rector. He was mayor of Pasto from 2016-2019.
. Wlliam Fulbright Scolarship, 1996, Master in Music
Dr. Juan Antonio Cuellar is a musician from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, thanks to the J. William Fulbright Award he obtained his Master’s Degree in Music Composition at Indiana University and later completed a Ph.D. in Music Composition at the same university. He has received several awards for his work, including the National Composition Prize of the Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo de Bogotá, the Indiana University Dean’s Prize in Composition, the Art of Music Composition Prize, and the Kuttner String Quartet Composition Competition. He has also taught theory and composition at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and the Indiana University School of Music. For several years he served as Academic Dean of the Faculty of Visual Arts at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. He served as Executive Director of the Batuta Foundation and is currently a professor at the Javeriana University.J. Wlliam Fulbright Scolarship, 1987, Master in Filmmaking
Filmmaker Patricia Cardoso studied anthropology at the Universidad de Los Andes. In 1987 she was awarded the J. William Fulbright Award to pursue a Master’s degree at UCLA Film School and graduated in 1994. In 1996 she was the first person in Colombia to receive an Oscar, the Student Academy Award, for the short film “The Kingdom of Heaven”. As an archaeologist she taught at the Javeriana University and was assistant director of the Instituto de Cultura of Colombia. She has worked at the Sundance Film Festival where she became director of Latin American Programs. She is a member of the Directors Guild of the United States, where only four percent are women. She is currently a professor at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.
J. Wlliam Fulbright Scholarship, 2009, Comparative Law
Bernardo Hoyos was born in Santa Rosa de Osos, Antioquia, in 1934. He was a lawyer by profession and a cultural journalist by vocation. In 1958, thanks to a Fulbright Award, he completed a Master’s Degree in Comparative Law at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He served, among other positions, as broadcaster and chronicler for the BBC in London, Director of the Spanish edition of International Management magazine, Director of Radio Bolivariana, Cultural Director of RTI Television and Cultural Advisor for Caracol Radio. Since 1999 he was Director of the radio station of the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano – HJUT. During his professional career he received awards from the Chamber of Commerce of Medellin, the Ministry of Education and received five Simon Bolivar Awards, including the Grand Prize for Life and Work in 2008 in recognition of his 55-year career dedicated to cultural journalism.J. Wlliam Fulbright Scholarship, 2009, Comparative Law
Dr. Ramón Fayad holds a B.Sc. in Physics, M.Sc. in Physics from the Universidad de Puerto Rico and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics (Biophysics) from Lehigh University. At the Universidad Nacional de Colombia he was head of the Biophysics Section (1980-1985), director of the Research and Scientific Development Committee (1982-1984), Secretary General (2003-2005) and Rector (2005-2006). He was rector of the Faculty of Sciences at the Universidad de los Andes (1993-1997) and is currently Professor of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the Universidad del Rosario. He has received several national and international awards, among them the National Medal for Educational Merit from the Javeriana, distinction for outstanding teaching at the Universidad Nacional and the Universidad del Rosario, distinction for academic and administrative contributions to the Universidad Nacional. He is a member of the Program Advisory Committee of the Fulbright Colombia Commission.
