Congratulations to two of our CHES grad affiliates who were awarded a Fulbright award! The award will support dissertation fieldwork for Eva Hernandez-Janer in Indonesia and Anissa Speakman in Zambia.

Eva Hernandez-Janer

Eva was awarded the Fulbright IIE Fellowship to support her research in Indonesia from Fall of 2022-2023. Her research, Assessing the Impacts of Ecological Disturbances on Wild Orangutans through Stable Isotopes, investigates the ways in which wild orangutan health is affected by previous peatlands fires and new road construction adjacent to the Tuanan Orangutan Research Station. By measuring stable isotopes on orangutan hair, and urine, as well as on foods the orangutans consume (plants, insects, bark, etc), her research will identify periods of nutritional stress in orangutans at varying distances from these disturbances. Eva’s Fulbright award has provided support and resources for her sample collection in Borneo which is critical to her dissertation research and also provides support for the ongoing collaborations with researchers in Indonesia.

Anissa Speakman

Anissa was awarded the Fulbright U.S. Student Award in 20 to support her research in Zambia: The Effect of Mating Strategy Variation on Reproductive Control in Kinda Baboons (Papio kindae). The award has been integral to her research on the interaction of male and female mating strategies. Using Fulbright funds, she was able to conduct a 6-month pilot study investigating the mating behaviors of Kinda. During that time she worked to refine her research objectives and lay the foundation for her dissertation data collection. Kinda baboons are a little-studied primate species and are remarkably different from other baboon species, especially in relation to mating behavior and opposite-sex relationships.