Isabelle Freiling receives prestigious Fulbright Scholarship

PhD student will conduct her research for four months at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA)

Her application was convincing: Isabelle Freiling receives a prestigious Fulbright scholarship within her PhD program at the Research Training Group “Trust and Communication in a Digitized World”. This grant enables her to go as a visiting scholar to the Department of Life Sciences Communication of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) from mid-January to mid-May 2020.

During this time, the communication scientist will work together with professor Michael Xenos and other colleagues on site to conduct research on trust and credibility in online social networks. “The scholarship allows me getting insights into working at an American university and the opportunity to establish new contacts and cooperations at UW-Madison” says Isabelle Freiling. “My research topic ‘misinformation and trust in online social networks’ is highly discussed in the US. This creates new opportunities for my dissertation, for example to conduct a comparative study between Germany and the US.”

Isabelle Freilings’ supervisor, junior professor Dr. Annie Waldherr from the department of communication, also sees a major opportunity in the stay abroad: “The Fulbright Scholarship is a great honor. The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a well-known location with distinguished colleagues in communication science. I am sure that Isabelle will receive many valuable inputs and establish important contacts for her work.”

The Fulbright program
Since 1946, the Fulbright program has been promoting academic exchange between the US and more than 160 countries. It is named after its founder, US Senator J. William Fulbright. His aim was to facilitate cross-border international understanding through a strong academic exchange. The largest part of the program, the German-American Fulbright Commission (Fulbright Germany) has sponsored over 46,000 Germans and Americans. Fulbright Germany annually awards 700 scholarships for study, research, and teaching in the US and Germany. More information about Fulbright program.