The GROklahoma Podcast Show | The Fulbright Year That Changes Everything: On Leaving, Belonging, and Coming Home Different – The One with Dr. Rita Keresztesi: Episode 27 (2026)

What if one of the most important investments you could make in your research career wasn’t a grant, a publication, or a promotion but a year that quietly rewires everything?

Welcome to the first episode of 2026. I’m recording this from Seoul, South Korea, in the final months of my Fulbright U.S. Presidential STEM Scholar appointment. I came here to study cancer survivorship across cultures. What I didn’t expect was how deeply this experience would reshape how I think about research itself: who it serves, where it happens, and what we miss when we never leave the building.

I didn’t want to tell this story alone. So, I’m joined by Dr. Rita Keresztesi, Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma and former Fulbright Ambassador, who took a Fulbright to Burkina Faso in 2010 and never came back the same. We come from completely different disciplines, humanities and clinical science, but Fulbright forced both of us to confront the same questions about purpose, belonging, and what it means to do meaningful work across borders. Rita was also one of the first people I called when I was preparing my own application. She didn’t give me the polished version; she gave me the real one. What it would cost, what it would give me, and what I'd need to survive it. And now I get to share that conversation with you.

Together, we unpack how Fulbright actually works: from Post vs. Commission structures and protected research time to what makes an application competitive. We also talk about loneliness, re-entry shock, and how global immersion can expand the way researchers design work that truly reaches communities. This episode is for the student, the researcher, the faculty member, the dreamer, anyone who has ever felt called to something bigger, more global, more human.

This one sat with me for months. I hope it sits with you too.

The GROklahoma Podcast is an initiative of the Oklahoma Shared Clinical and Translational Resources (OSCTR).