by Fulbright Scholar Daniela Constantin

On October 31, Daniela L. Constantin, PhD, Professor at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies and Fulbright Scholar at George Mason University (GMU) between October 2014 – February 2015 delivered a plenary presentation titled “Integrated Urban Planning and Planned Communities. The Case of Reston, U.S.” at the 11th International Conference of the Administration and Public Management Faculty of the BUES. Reston is the first modern, post-war planned community in the U.S. and has been listed for many years in the Top 10 “Best Places to Live” in the U.S. – small city category by Time inc’s Money Magazine. The successful story of Reston, located in the Washington Metropolitan Area was brought into discussion as a useful lesson for the development of new residential areas and communities in Bucharest Metropolitan Area. The presentation was a tribute to Reston’s founder, Mr. Robert E. Simon, who passed away in September 2015, at 101 years of age. Professor Constantin had the privilege to meet Mr. Simon on the occasion of her study visits to Reston and presentation delivered at the Reston Community Center at the Rose Gallery, Lake Anne, in January 2015, when Mr. Simon was a distinguished member of the panel of experts that graced that event.

Amy Liu, Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bucharest, gave a lecture at Babeş-Bolyai University on 9 December 2015. The talk, titled “Anti-Corruption Campaigns and Migrant Attitudes: Evidence from Romania”, focused specifically on ANAF’s (Administraţia Natională de Administrare Fiscală) recent raids on Chinatown (Dragonul Roşu). Using survey data collected before and after the anti-corruption campaign began, Amy showed how these transparency efforts have had a negative effect on Chinese attitudes toward local authorities, local Romanians, and their long plans in Romania.

The joint work which was the result of the 2009-2010 Fulbright Senior Fellowship carried out by Professor Duma (Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad and Polytechnics University of Timisoara, Romania) at the prestigious Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, NY, USA has produced in 2015 another paper in Applied Optics, the flagship journal of the Optical Society of America (OSA):

Duma V.-F.*, Tankam P., Huang J., Won J. J., and Rolland J. P., “Optimization of galvanometer scanning for Optical Coherence Tomography”, Applied Optics 54(17), 5495-5507 (2015), ISSN 1559-128X; ISI Impact Factor 1.784/2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/AO.54.005495

The paper was also selected and published in the Virtual Journal for Biomedical Optics 10(6), ISSN 1931-1532 (2015), where the most downloaded articles of OSA journals are collected every month.

The Fulbright Stage has produced a long-term collaboration between the host, Professor Rolland's group, and the one of the visitor, Professor Duma's 3OM Optomechatronics Group. This collaboration continues with the former Fulbright Fellow being a Visiting Scientist in Rochester since 2013 - in Optics, with a focus on the dynamic field of Biomedical Imaging, in particular Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT).

On December 9, the Fulbright-EducationUSA Advising Center (FEAC) team joined the first International Study Day/ISD event of the fall semester, with a series of two presentations in Piteşti and Râmnicu-Vâlcea, respectively. Representatives of the German Foreign Exchange Service, DAAD, the British Council and FEAC delivered 45-minute presentations in both cities, either followed or preceded by interactions with visitors who asked questions and received answers and promotional materials regarding study opportunities abroad.