Accounting Professor Awarded Fulbright Grant

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (February 6, 2009) – Sajay Samuel, clinical associate professor of accounting at Penn State's Smeal College of Business, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon beginning this month.

Samuel will spend about two months in Lebanon, teaching in the university's MBA and executive MBA programs, presenting research papers, and assisting in some AUB curricula redesigns. His course will focus on integrative management and intrapreneurship, and feature a business simulation similar to the one he leads in Smeal's capstone undergraduate course. The class will also address global trends affecting business in the next 20 years.

The Fulbright Program, America's flagship international education exchange activity, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Since its establishment in 1945, more than 279,000 American and foreign university students, K-12 teachers, and university faculty and professionals have participated in Fulbright exchange programs.

Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievements and because they have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential in their fields. Among the thousands of prominent Fulbright Scholar alumni are Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist; Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet; and Craig Barrett, chair of Intel Corporation.

Anthony Warren, Farrell Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship, was the last Fulbright Scholar from Smeal. He spent the 2006-2007 academic year at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration in Austria and at the University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Samuel is one of 13 Penn State professors and administrators who were honored with awards this year, ranking the University in third place nationally for the most outgoing scholars.

At Smeal, Samuel designed and organizes the biannual undergraduate competition "The Corporate Exchange," which serves as the culminating experience for the more than 700 students enrolled each semester in the capstone course "Analyzing Business and Industry."

Samuel, who has been on the Smeal faculty since 2003, also serves as clinical associate professor of science, technology, and society in Penn State's College of Liberal Arts. Previously, he has taught at Bucknell University and the University of Connecticut. He holds a master's degree from Bombay University, and a master's degree and a Ph.D. from Smeal.