KUCHING – An academic from Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus has been awarded the Fulbright Scholar-In-Residence (SIR) Program and is currently on attachment with a university in the US.
Biotechnology senior lecturer Dr Ng Sing Muk, who will spend six months with Winston Salem State University (WSSU) in North Carolina, left for the US in December last year and will complete his attachment in May.
While at WSSU, Ng hopes to internationalise the Chemistry curriculum at the American university, develop opportunities for both research and education abroad for its students and faculty, provide faculty development and engagement with internationalisation of the curriculum, mentor students for effective global citizenship and strengthen the general education curriculum by integrating global knowledge and skills.
“Among the things I will be involved in are teaching, working with the Chemistry faculty toward a general education course with curricular themes in globalisation and sustainability, as well as directing undergraduate research studies,” said Ng, an academic with the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science who specialises in Chemistry with a focus on developing materials for optical sensor application.
The SIR programme assists US higher education institutions in expanding programmes of academic exchange. By supporting non-US scholars such as Ng through grants for teaching at institutions that might not have a strong international component, both the US institution and the scholar grantee benefit.
WSSU, one of the host institutions for the Fulbright scholarship programme, was founded in 1892. It was the first African-American institution in the US to grant elementary education teaching degrees in 1925. Today, WSSU has grown to include undergraduate and graduate programmes in more than 40 majors that meet the needs of a fast-evolving job market.