The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is proud to announce that three of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize winners are alumni of U.S. Department of State exchange programs, including two Fulbright Program alumni and one alumnus of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP).

Ian Knight, a senior at Hellgate High School in Missoula, Montana, is the grand prize winner of the U.S. Department of State’s Citizen Diplomacy Challenge. Ian submitted the photo “Unity,” which features him at prayer in a mosque in rural Thailand.

An Alumni TIES small grant results in this project, Building Soil and Community: An Educational Composting Pilot, aimed to reduce the production of greenhouse gases while restoring the nutrient cycle by making composting more readily available to the citizens of Lynchburg.

Applications are now open for the 2018 Professional Fellows Program Alumni Impact Award. This competition is only open to alumni of the Professional Fellows Program, and winners will be recognized at the Professional Fellows Congresses in Washington, D.C. Apply before the deadline on February 19, 2018.

From Egypt to Hawaii, Chicago to Brazil, these Professional Fellows are demonstrating the transformative power of exchanges on individuals and society, and inspiring others with their continued work. Congratulations to the 2017 Professional Fellows Alumni Impact Award winners!

During citizenAR, a State Department-funded hackathon teams from universities around the United States imagined new ways of engaging city-dwellers in making their environment more sustainable.