Victorian Chapter

The Victorian Chapter of the AFAA is committed to supporting the enduring vitality of the global Fulbright Alumni community at an intimate local level. We do this by initiating and coordinating a variety of social, academic and artistic events throughout the year, including events to welcome incoming U.S. Scholars, informal send-off dinners for new Australian Scholars, guest lectures from visiting Scholars, academic salons and lounges, and Alumni performances and exhibitions.

At the heart of the Fulbright Program lives a great human ideal of community, connectedness, and compassion. Senator J. William Fulbright believed the Program could play a significant role in building world peace, facilitating mutual understanding between cultures as it transformed individual lives through internationally enriched educational experiences. While a Fulbright Scholarship offers wonderful opportunities during the specific award period, Senator Fulbright’s ideal shows its full dimensions in the rich relationships it builds between people, institutions and nations over time; the ideal is realized crucially in the ongoing cultural and intellectual exchanges that happen across a global Fulbright Alumni community.

Victorian Chapter contacts:

Chapter Chair: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
"I joined the Victorian Chapter in 2004 on my return from Berkeley and I accepted the role of Chair in 2010. My Fulbright experience has been enriched significantly through my involvement with the Alumni community. The AFAA has helped me to maintain a 'sense of community' with other scholars, both returned Australian scholars and visiting US scholars. Maintaining links with the AFAA also has helped me make deeper sense of my own experience by participating in the Committee, and organising events for both departing and newly returned scholars."


			Chapter Secretary: Dr Danae Killian-O'Callaghan "As the inaugural Fulbright Postgraduate Alumni (WG Walker) Scholar, I have always felt a particularly warmth towards the Alumni Association and the idea of a lifelong Fulbright experience. It is my conviction that the real meaning of a Fulbright Scholarship extends well beyond the tenure of an individual award. The Fulbright Scholarship, which I received at the tender age of 21, was an incredible gift to my life; it sowed important seeds for my adult professional and academic journey; it transformed me personally. For me as an individual, that gift has been precious—but I see it somehow becoming much more valuable when I let it move into circulation, when I let it mix with the experiences and talents of other Fulbright Alumni; until the original gift acquires many more facets than my own Fulbright experience alone could have given it. In truth, I am constantly amazed by the sheer variety of human capacities, all of them formidable, that I encounter in a room full of Fulbright Alumni. I have been Victorian Chapter Secretary since 2010."

Chapter Secretary: Dr Danae Killian-O'Callaghan

"As the inaugural Fulbright Postgraduate Alumni (WG Walker) Scholar, I have always felt a particularly warmth towards the Alumni Association and the idea of a lifelong Fulbright experience. It is my conviction that the real meaning of a Fulbright Scholarship extends well beyond the tenure of an individual award. The Fulbright Scholarship, which I received at the tender age of 21, was an incredible gift to my life; it sowed important seeds for my adult professional and academic journey; it transformed me personally. For me as an individual, that gift has been precious—but I see it somehow becoming much more valuable when I let it move into circulation, when I let it mix with the experiences and talents of other Fulbright Alumni; until the original gift acquires many more facets than my own Fulbright experience alone could have given it. In truth, I am constantly amazed by the sheer variety of human capacities, all of them formidable, that I encounter in a room full of Fulbright Alumni. I have been Victorian Chapter Secretary since 2010."