Matthew Zaslansky has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright fellowship in linguistics for the 2019-2020 academic year. Beginning in September, Matthew will carry out linguistic research in the Republic of Georgia to document and describe morphosyntactic variation in the dialects of Georgian Sign Language used by deaf signers in Batumi and Tbilisi. Matthew will be one of more than 700 U.S. citizens to carry out research abroad next year courtesy of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, which is overseen by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. He is the sole recipient of the 2019-2020 Fulbright Study/Research Award for Georgia, and  will be the first grantee from UC San Diego to visit the country.

Since its inception in 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 380,000 participants—chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential—with the opportunity to exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. Over 1,900 U.S. students, artists and early career professionals in more than 100 different fields of study are offered Fulbright Program grants to study, teach English and conduct research annually in over 140 countries throughout the world.