ASU named a top producer of prestigious Fulbright student awards for 2025–26
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Neha Karanjia traveled more than 6,000 miles from Arizona to South Korea to visit a bug farm.
Karanjia, a recent graduate of Arizona State University, won a Fulbright award in the U.S. Student Program last year to research food waste recycling in South Korea.
“South Korea has a 98% recycling rate with food waste, and they’re able to turn it into a bunch of different products, like bioenergy and animal feed,” she said.
“My research is to see what infrastructure or policy is necessary to bring stronger recycling rates in the United States.”
Last week, she visited a farm in South Korea that cultivates black soldier flies, which are fed food waste and then grow into high-protein larvae that can be used as animal feed.
“I’m not a big fan of bugs, but it wasn’t that scary,” she said.
Karanjia is one of 20 Arizona State University students or alumni who are in the 2025–26 cohort of U.S. Fulbright students traveling abroad. The university’s continued success in the prestigious international exchange program has led to ASU being once again designated a top-producing institution of Fulbright students.
The rankings were announced on Feb. 3 by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which oversees the Fulbright program.
ASU ranked third among public doctoral-granting universities in the U.S. for student awards, tied with the University of Virginia and ahead of UCLA, Ohio State University and the University of Texas at. Austin.
Among all doctoral-granting universities, public and private, ASU was 15th, ahead of Stanford University, the University of Southern California and Johns Hopkins University.
The bureau has been ranking universities for 22 years and ASU has been a top producer 20 times, according to Kyle Mox, associate dean of national scholarship advisement in the Office of National Scholarship Advisement at ASU.
Nancy Gonzales, executive vice president and university provost, said, “ASU’s mission is grounded in our responsibility to the public good and in creating positive impact in the world. The scholarship and global engagement of our students and scholars bring that mission to life.
“ASU’s continued recognition as a top producer of Fulbright students and scholars reflects the global reach and significance of their work.
“On behalf of the academic community, we are proud of our Fulbright awardees and grateful for their contributions to advancing cultural exchange and mutual understanding around the globe.”
ASU has previously been a top producer of U.S. Fulbright faculty awards as well. This year, five professors are Fulbright Scholars.
ASU excels at placing faculty and students into the Fulbright program because the university provides a high level of support during the application process. Applicants have access to information sessions and workshops, plus hours of advising, application review and interview preparation. Students get help from the Office of National Scholarship Advisement and faculty work with Karen Engler-Weber, program director in the Office of the University Provost and ASU’s liaison to the Fulbright Scholar and Specialist programs.
That intensive support draws interest across ASU.
“Our students have been more optimistic than ever,” Mox said. “We held intake meetings for well over 200 students. I really admire that optimism from our students, and I think it’s due in a large part to the culture that our faculty, our staff and ONSA builds.”
Mox has been a Fulbright advisor for 20 years and is impressed by how inclusive the applicant pool has become.
“In terms of the increasing numbers of our digital immersion students applying for Fulbright — it would have been impossible to imagine that 10 years ago.
“There are applicants from various ages, walks of life, academic backgrounds, professional interest, veteran status — not the traditional markers of breadth that we think about, but people with a lot of different life experiences that I think normally would look at something this prestigious and say, ‘That's not for me.’"
The scholarship office recently switched to cohort-based advising for student applicants, Mox said.
“One of the things that we've been emphasizing a lot more is connection during the application process.
“We worked really hard to have students participate in group advising, participate in peer review, to work together in cohorts, to get their roommates to apply and to bring more people in.
“And then it becomes community building and a shared outcome because it’s not just 81 individuals applying. It's 81 applicants working together.”
There are two Fulbright awards that students can apply for: research, like Karanjia, and English teaching assistant.
Karanjia worked with the Office of National Scholarship Advisement on her application for more than three months.
“The way that they go about it is so structured and it really gave me the accountability I needed and also the ability to have a strong sounding board to pitch my ideas,” said Karanjia, who graduated in May 2025 with three degrees from the W. P. Carey School of Business: economics, business sustainability and supply chain management.
“When people are giving away scholarships, being able to tell a strong narrative is really important,” she said.
Catherine Salgado, a program manager in the Office of National Scholarship Advisement, works with ASU’s teaching applicants, who also must propose a community-engagement project.
“That part is very open-ended, which is why it lends itself so well to a variety of majors and life experiences,” she said.
Salgado was an English teaching assistant on a Fulbright award in Portugal in 2016, when she was a student at the University of Arizona.
“For my project, I did some translation work and organized events on my campus. Or it can be volunteering. It really is a DIY kind of project,” she said.
She helps applicants research the country they’re applying to to understand what’s going on there and what its priorities are.
“That’s so they can make a really good case for why they should be there and how they can use their skills and abilities to make an impact on the community,” she said.
Teaching experience is not typically required.
“They define teaching pretty broadly in Fulbright — leadership opportunities, one-on-one tutoring, coaching.
“I would say more than half of our English teaching assistants don't plan on being career teachers and do not have traditional teaching experience in front of a classroom.”
Resilience is key.
“I remember during my grant, I was taking a tour of my school and they said, ‘We need a substitute teacher. Can you teach?’ And I ended up teaching a business English class on my first day.
“You really are a cultural ambassador first, and that's why they want folks to use all the tools in their toolbox because it's not just about teaching English. English is really the vehicle for cultural exchange.”
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