September 22, 2003
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.- John Rager, a professor of computer science at Amherst College, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture in Chisinau, Moldova during the 2003-04 academic year, according to the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Rager will teach artificial intelligence, programming languages, and computer graphics at the Academia de Studii Economice in Moldova. In addition, he will lecture at various other academic institutions in Moldova.

Rager is one of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to some 140 countries for the 2003-04 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the program's purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.

The Fulbright Program, America's flagship international educational exchange activity, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Over its 57 years of existence, thousands of U.S. faculty and professionals have studied, taught or done research abroad, and thousands of their counterparts from other countries have engaged in similar activities in the U.S. They are among more than 250,000 American and foreign university students, K-12 teachers and university faculty and professionals who have participated in one of the several Fulbright exchange programs.

Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and because they have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential in their fields.

###