News

The Robin and Avril Winks Award honors the memory of Robin Winks, a founding board member of the Roth Foundation and Yale University history professor, and his New Zealander wife, Avril. The award goes to a Fulbright scholar from New Zealand/Aotearoa who is coming to the U.S. to pursue graduate study. For 2022, the award […]

Congratulations to Vanessa Wagner for winning a Gill Jacot-Guillarmod Career Achievement Award! Over the course of a career spanning nearly two decades, she has led the entire range of cultural programming at the US Embassy in Lima, secured $2.5 million to conserve dozens of heritage sites and led the repatriation of some 2,000 artifacts from

Congratulations to Fatma Souidi on winning a Gill Jacot-Guillarmod Career Achievement Award! Her work to protect and preserve Algerian cultural artifacts culminating in the region’s first Memorandum of Understanding on Cultural Property and updated cultural preservation legislation and training. What an impressive achievement!

Elena Broszkowski won a Gill Jacot-Guillarmod Career Achievement Award for her contributions to promoting mutual understanding, through the arts, between citizens of the U.S. and Venezuela. She managed the Performing and Visual Arts Portfolio at the US Embassy in Caracas for 12 years as well as programs aimed at social transformation through the arts, which

The Lois Roth Foundation congratulates Dr. Gözde Doğan Yalçıner on receiving the Gill Jacot- Guillarmod Award (Honorable Mention). Her superior diplomacy skills helped link the Turkish government, NGOs and academic institutions to advance cultural heritage preservation, a mission that Turkey and the U.S. share. She brought the two countries together which resulted in the signing

Elina Akhtiyarova earned the Gill Jacot-Guillarmod Award for her extraordinary efforts in shaping exchange programs at the US Embassy in Kazakhstan. She shaped over 12 exchange programs from inception to fruition, developing what will be ongoing relationships that benefit both Kazakhstan and the U.S. When COVID cancelled the in-person event celebrating the 80th anniversary of

The Roth Foundation provides supplementary support to one American Fulbrighter working in Australia each year, in collaboration with the Australian-American Fulbright Commission. The 2022 Australia Project Support Award was presented to Elizabeth Schmidt. She will use this award to conduct a policy and media analysis of Australian policy on the rights and safety of LGBTQ

According to PEN America, in the first 9 months of 2021, 24 legislatures introduced 54 bills that would restrict academic discussions and dictate teaching instructions in k-12 schools, higher education institutions, and state agencies. But what do you know about the impact of these legislations on students and academic professionals? Join representatives of PEN America

Charlotte Titus received the Lois Roth Foundation’s 2021 Ilchman-Richardson Award Honorable Mention in recognition of over 30 years of principled leadership and distinguished service to the State Department’s flagship International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP). As Branch Chief of IVLP’s Europe/Eurasia Branch, Charlotte provided real-time guidance to keep exchange participants safe during the pandemic, while also

The Roth Foundation offers supplementary funds to a grantee of the American Scandinavian Foundation traveling to Denmark. This prize was instituted in honor of Lois Roth’s friend, Sonja Bungard-Nielsen, long-time director of the Danish American Foundation. The 2022 Denmark Project Support Award went to Dr. David Norman. He will use this award to conduct research

Toni Bowser, Director of IT at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), received the Lois Roth Foundation’s 2021 Ilchman-Richardson Award in recognition of her dedication and creativity in adapting technologies in response to the seismic workplace shifts brought by the pandemic. Her principled leadership led to the multi-year Vision21 Project, permitting ECA to

Cultural Affairs Officer Raisa Dukas’s exemplary support of her peers during the pandemic earned her the 2021 Lois Roth Award (Honorable Mention). Based at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, her strategic outreach initiatives to coordinate programs among neighboring posts have had a lasting impact on regional CulturalDiplomacy efforts. Our congratulations, Raisa!

We congratulate the 2021 LoisRoth Award recipient Bill Couch! As Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki, Finland, he coordinated the repatriation from the Finnish National Museum of the remains of 20 Indigenous People and their funerary objects for reburial in their ancestral home at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Bill’s commitment

In collaboration with Fulbright Norway, the Roth Foundation grants an award to an American Fulbrighter in Norway every year. The 2022 award went to Kathleen Maris Paltriner. Kathleen is translating an anthology of ecopoetry to be published in the US where there is a lack of Norwegian poetry in translation. She will translate a total

The Roth Foundation extends hearty congratulations to 2015 Ilchman-Richardson Award recipient, Lorie Nierenberg, on her selection for the State Department’s Edward R. Murrow Excellence in Public Diplomacy Award. This prestigious award recognizes Nierenberg’s long service to U.S. educational and cultural diplomacy, at both the U.S. Information Agency and the Department of State. Practitioners of U.S.

In celebration of our 35th anniversary this year, we have some exciting announcements to share with you! First and foremost, we are now becoming the LOIS ROTH FOUNDATION—find us at loisrothfoundation.org. Over the years, we have supported many grants, awards, lectures and fellowships in collaboration with universities, embassies and other cultural institutions in the United

At its annual awards ceremony in Washington, DC, the Modern Language Association of America presented its MLA-Roth Award for Translation of a Literary Work.  In addition to the award to Clint Bruce, the MLA conferred an honorable mention to Margaret Jull Costa and Patricio Ferrari for their translation of Fernando Pessoa’s The Complete Works of

On January 8, 2022, The Modern Language Association of America presented the MLA-Roth Award for Translation of a Literary Work to Clint Bruce for his translation of Afro-Creole Poetry in French from Louisiana’s Radical Civil War-Era Newspapers: A Bilingual Edition, published by the Historic New Orleans Collection with University of Virginia Press. This translation highlights

A generous gift from Ann O. Thomson provides supplementary project support for American Fulbrighters in Finland every year, in cooperation with the Fulbright Finland Foundation. For 2022, the award was presented to Kathlyn Elliott. Kathlyn is researching the important role of teachers in preventing extremist ideology in Finnish schools. With the Roth-Thomson Award, she will

A generous gift from Ann O. Thomson, whom Lois referred to as her Swedish adoptive mother, provides supplementary project support for American Fulbrighters in Sweden every year. The 2022 Roth-Thomson Award was presented to Radhika Purandare. Radhika is conducting research on the inequities in maternal health among immigrant populations in Sweden. She will use the

The 2021 Persian Translation Prize, awarded by the American Institute of Iranian Studies (AIIrS) to Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi and Patricia Higgins for their translation of Iraj Pezeshkzad’s historical novel Hafez in Love, perfectly embodies Lois Roth’s conviction of the essential role of literary translation as a vehicle for cross-cultural dialogue and understanding. The translators selected a