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Perpetua Kirby selected as a Fulbright Scholar to tackle global challenges through virtual international exchange
By: Heather Stanley
Last updated: Friday, 3 October 2025
Perpetua Kirby has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship iunder the Commission's 'Climate Action' category
Dr Perpetua Kirby, Assistant Professor in Childhood & Youth and course leader for the Childhood & Youth BA course, has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar to tackle global challenges through virtual international exchange.
The US-UK Fulbright Commission and the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) announced the recipients of the 2025–26 Global Challenges Teaching Awards (GCTA). These pioneering awards support teaching faculty from the United States and the United Kingdom in co-delivering interdisciplinary virtual exchange and collaborative online international learning courses that address pressing global challenges.
Now in its third cycle, the GCTA programme continues to advance innovative and inclusive models of international collaboration. Each award recipient is partnered with a counterpart award recipient across the Atlantic to co-design a VE/COIL course addressing one of the four award categories: Climate Action, Health Inequality, Disinformation and Misinformation, or Peace and Justice. In addition, each faculty member will work alongside their institutional team—comprising an administrator and an instructional support colleague—to strengthen campus-wide capacity for virtual exchange and explore the long-term potential of VE/COIL integration.
This year’s cohort includes Dr Perpetua Kirby, Assistant Professor in Childhood & Youth at the University of Sussex who was selected under the 'Climate Action' category with American counterpart, Julia Cantzler from the University of San Diego in the USA.
Commenting on her award, Perpetua said:
“The Fulbright Award offers a unique opportunity to collaborate with a US colleague who shares a commitment to integrating diverse perspectives into climate and ecological education. Together, we shall be exploring creative ways to connect our students across borders, so that they might respond to global problems from a global perspective, while remaining attentive to local and regional impacts. The exact form of our collaboration is emerging; this openness is a key part of what makes the Award exciting.”