Raj Sashti, an advisor for Fellowships and Sponsored Programs in Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, has been named to a five year term (2016 - 2021) as a U.S. academic/professional expert in the Fulbright Specialist Program (FSP). Sashti will visit overseas institutions of higher education for periods of two to six weeks to help build capacity for international programs.

The Fulbright, within the FSP, is sponsored by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), a division of the Institute of International Education (IIE). Each year, the FSP sends some 425 U.S. educators to institutions in all regions of the world.  

Sashti’s area of interest and expertise is to engage in collaborative projects with counterparts at universities and colleges (people in key leadership positions in academia and directors of international education). The projects will focus on comprehensive approaches to internationalization of the campus and curricula that go beyond teaching and research to permit educators and students to engage in international opportunities so that they can adapt and succeed in a highly interdependent global economy. The primary goal is to enhance the access of a cross section of previously underserved segments of people to international education programs. One of the segments is people studying and working both inside and outside elite institutions.

Sashti has worked at six units in the University System of Georgia including Georgia Tech and has more than 45 years of experience in international education program development, administration, and leadership. For the past two years, he has worked part time for the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Public Policy assisting undergraduate and graduate students in securing Fulbright and other prestigious fellowships and internships.

He has directed more than two dozen Fulbright-funded group projects abroad in numerous countries in East, Southeast and South Asia; Europe; the Middle East; Africa; and Latin America.

The 70-year-old Fulbright Program, named after former U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright, is the flagship international education and exchange program providing funding for exchange educators from the U. S. and other world regions. The program currently has partnership agreements with 140 countries. The main purpose of the public diplomacy program is to share expertise, to strengthen institutional linkages, to foster international experience and learning about other cultures, and to promote mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.