Dean Stocker, PhD, spent the final weeks of 2024 leading seminars half a world away while enjoying his first experience as a Fulbright Specialist.

Stocker, who is an associate professor of physics at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College, spent two weeks in December at the Hanoi University of Science and Technology in Hanoi, Vietnam. He led four separate seminars for faculty and graduate students on best practices for teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) courses.

The seminars were well-attended and covered topics that included resources for STEM teachers, scientific reasoning labs, supporting STEM students with special needs and how to establish an e-learning and professional development center. Stocker also called on a few U.S. colleagues to provide their expertise for the presentations, including UC Blue Ash professors Lynn Ritchey, PhD; Joseph Baumgartner, PhD; Brenda Refaei, PhD, and Krista Wood, PhD.

Stocker said he was pleased with the response from his Vietnamese colleagues. “I believe the most important outcome is simply building the relationships across geographical and cultural lines, but that is hard to measure,” he noted. “Each seminar seemed to have positive outcomes; there was a great deal of interest, especially in some of the open educational resources that were discussed.”

Stocker was excited to get the opportunity to serve in the Fulbright program. He successfully applied to become a Fulbright Specialist in 2021 and has pursued a few other opportunities, but this was the first time he was selected. It was also his first trip to Vietnam.