Department of Marketing boasts two recent Fulbright Scholars among its faculty
Further evidence of the excellent faculty found within the UT COBI Department of Marketing and International Business is the fact that, in the past three years, two COBI marketing professors had the remarkable experience of being awarded a Fulbright Scholar: Iryna Pentina, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing, and Ellen Pullins, Ph.D., Schmidt Research Professor of Professional Sales.
Pentina was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and conduct research at the International Solomon University’s Eastern Ukrainian Branch. She traveled to the Ukraine in spring, 2013 for the first, qualitative, stage of her research project, and then again in spring 2014 for its final, experimental stage.
“I am very excited and honored to receive this distinguished scholarship,” Pentina said. “In our ‘borderless’ economic environment, the discipline of marketing has increasingly focused on developing the body of knowledge based on international empirical findings. I anticipate that my work in the Ukraine will contribute to a better understanding of the institutional and cultural contexts for consumer decision making in emerging economies.”
Dr. Pullins, was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and research at Hagaa Helia University in Finland during the 2014-2015 academic year.
Pullins taught professional sales and conducted research on professional business-to-business sales in international markets, specifically Customer Affective Response to Professional Sales.
"Obviously I was thrilled on being notified that I had received the grant. I believe that business can’t be separated from international business in today’s world, and that international experiences for faculty are critically important," said Pullins.
“We congratulate Dr. Pentina and Dr. Pullins on their outstanding personal and professional achievement of being selected a Fulbright Scholar,” said COBI Department of Marketing Chair Dr. Thomas Sharkey. “It is a testimony to their commitment to the teaching/research profession and their dedication to personal lifelong learning which benefits both her students and her academic colleagues.”
Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and those of other countries. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support.
Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given approximately 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, scientists and other professionals the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.