Anne Sales, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a nurse and professor in the Sinclair School of Nursing and the Department of Family and Community Medicine in the School of Medicine at Mizzou.
July 10, 2025
Written By: Jade Elwess
Six University of Missouri faculty members have been selected to join the prestigious Fulbright Scholar Program and become part of the global network of scholars who create international partnerships with host universities through their research and teaching. They will travel to places such as Europe, India and South Africa, conducting hands-on research that will impact lives in the areas of economics, conservation, chemistry and culture.
The awardees are:
College of Arts and Science
Sachin Handa: India
Host Institution: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Research focus: Handa is teaching a four-month graduate-level course to encourage students to pursue careers in sustainable chemistry. He will also visit leading pharmaceutical companies in India to deliver lectures and connect students with industry for internships.
Eric Parsons: Belgium
Host institution: Ghent University in Belgium.
Research focus: Parsons will be working on developing a joint doctoral program in economics, expanding the student exchange program between the two universities both by advertising Mizzou to Ghent students and creating course bundles at Ghent that will appeal to Mizzou students, and restarting the Truman School’s short-term study abroad program to Belgium.
College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources
Susanta Behura: India
Host institution: Utkal University in Odisha, India
Research focus: Behura will explore the effects of environmental stresses on cattle in India and hopes to apply this to developing new courses on animal resilience to weather when he returns to Mizzou.
Allison Pease: Paraguay
Host institution: Paraguayan National Museum of Natural History
Research focus: Pease will research the sustainability of river fisheries and their role in the larger ecosystem. Pease’s family will accompany her—a lesser-known benefit of the Fulbright program, which in some cases also provides support and resources for families, such as tuition assistance for education abroad for children.
College of Health Sciences
Laura Morett: Turkey
Host institution: Koç University in Istanbul
Research focus: Morett will expand her research on cultural differences in pitch gestures between English speakers and Turkish speakers.
Sinclair School of Nursing
Anne Sales: Fulbright Global Scholar Program
Host universities: University of Zambia in Lusaka, Zambia; the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa; and the University of Malaysia in Sarawak in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia
Research focus: Sales will be doing training in implementation science in health care with faculty and the focus will be on supporting faculty to teach students principles of quality improvement and implementation science.
Faculty credit the Fulbright “Cheerleader”
The applicants were assisted by David Crespy, Fulbright liaison with the Office of the Provost, and a two-time Fulbright Scholar. He hosts webinars about Fulbright opportunities for faculty along with other Mizzou alumni of the program and gives them advice on creating successful applications. Last year’s four Fulbright faculty recipients also credited Crespy’s role in their successful applications.
Handa and Parsons recommend starting the process early as well as working with Crespy throughout the application process. Parsons said Crespy gave him specific feedback that resulted in a stronger project proposal.
Thinking About Applying?
The deadline for the 2026-27 U.S. Scholar Program is Sept. 15, 2025. Read more about eligibility and application steps on the Fulbright Scholar website.
This story was originally published on Show Me Mizzou, July 8, 2025.
