Shannon Cummins, Ph.D., and Birud Sindhav, Ph.D., Receive Fulbright U.S. Scholar Awards for 2025-2026

Birud Sindhav and Shannon Cummins, Professors of Marketing at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, have received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award in Marketing to Bahrain and Barbados, respectively for the Spring 2026 semester from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

This will be Dr. Cummins’ second Fulbright appointment. She will provide support, training and mentoring to faculty at Sir Arthur Lewis College in Barbados with the specific aim of increasing research and community engagement among the business faculty.

This is a joint teaching and research assignment for Dr. Sindhav. For research, he will focus on comparing the impact of AI tools on student perceptions and learning across different cultural contexts. Dr. Sindhav says Bahrain presents an ideal match for his proposed project for two reasons. “One, it offers an attractive counterpoint to the US in terms of cultural values and approaches to technology adoption. Two, in the AI Readiness Index, Bahrain is in the middle of the pack within the MENA region, lagging behind the bigger countries like UAE and Saudi Arabia but ahead of the countries like Egypt and Kuwait. Bahrain is not happy to be “average”, and eager to move ahead, evident by investing in various AI-related initiatives. Their “Vision 2030” explicitly marks AI as the challenge that must be tackled now,” he said.

For more information about the UNO Faculty Fulbright Program, click here: https://www.unomaha.edu/academic-affairs/faculty-support/fulbright-faculty.php

Fulbright U.S. Scholars are faculty, researchers, administrators, and established professionals teaching or conducting research in affiliation with institutes abroad. Fulbright Scholars engage in cutting-edge research and expand their professional networks, often continuing research collaborations started abroad and laying the groundwork for forging future partnerships between institutions.

Upon returning to their home countries, institutions, labs, and classrooms,
they share their stories and often become active supporters of international exchange, inviting foreign scholars to campus and encouraging colleagues and students to go abroad.

Since 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided over 400,000 talented and accomplished students, scholars, teachers, artists, and professionals with the opportunity to study, teach, and conduct research abroad. Fulbrighters exchange ideas, build people-to-people connections, and work to address complex global challenges. Notable Fulbrighters include 62 Nobel Laureates, 93 Pulitzer Prize winners, 82 MacArthur Fellows, 44 heads of state or government, and thousands of leaders across the private, public, and non-profit sectors.

Over 800 individuals teach or conduct research abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program annually. In addition, over 2,000 Fulbright U.S. Student Program participants—recent college graduates, graduate students, and early career professionals—participate in study/research exchanges or as English teaching assistants in local schools abroad each year.

Fulbright is a program of the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the Program, which operates in over 160 countries worldwide.

In the United States, the Institute of International Education implements the Fulbright U.S. Student and U.S. Scholar Programs on behalf of the U.S. Department of State. For more information about the Fulbright Program, visit https://fulbrightprogram.org.