Alumna Emma Fecteau has received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to serve as a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Taiwan for the 2026–27 academic year.
Fecteau graduated from Marquette with a Master’s in English in 2025 and has a demonstrated commitment to teaching, having worked as a teaching assistant at Marquette and in her current work as an adjunct instructor at Milwaukee Area Technical College. She has been studying Mandarin for many years and, following her Fulbright in Taiwan, she hopes to pursue a second master’s degree in contemporary Chinese studies at Oxford.
“Emma was an exceptional applicant, well-suited to the Fulbright ETA grant not only because of her prior experience as a teacher and language learner, but also because of her genuine cultural curiosity and multi-disciplinary interests,” said Dr. Karalee Surface, Fulbright program advisor and fellowships coordinator at Marquette. “She demonstrated a really far-ranging sense of curiosity about everything from environmentalism to ‘Golden Age’ Hollywood films to training in an EMT program while pursuing her graduate studies in English. As an ETA, these varied interests will help her connect with and learn from a wide variety of residents in her host community.”
Fecteau was one of 10 Marquette Fulbright applicants in this year’s cycle. Two others, Isabella Pretti, Arts ’25, and Kamaria Gragston, Arts ’26, both advanced as semi-finalists, and Pretti was named an alternate for the Fulbright ETA program in Belgium. Pretti is currently working as an English language instructor in France through Villa Albertine’s TAPIF program. “Marquette has continued to see a growing student engagement with Fulbright,” Surface notes. “We’re hopeful that more undergraduates, graduate students and alumni will explore the possibilities that a Fulbright grant has to offer to students and graduates from all academic disciplines.”
The 2027–28 Fulbright application cycle is currently open, and interested applicants are encouraged to reach out to Surface to apply. June 15 marks the internal declaration of intent deadline, wherein applicants report their grant type and grant country to Surface. The campus deadline for submitting a full application draft is Aug. 14, with campus reviews being conducted in early September.
Fulbright provides opportunities for exceptional Americans and participants from 160 countries and locations to study, teach, and conduct research abroad. Close to 2,000 Fulbright U.S. Students — recent college graduates, graduate students and early career professionals — pursue graduate study, conduct research or teach English in schools abroad each year. They are recognized alongside faculty, researchers, administrators and established professionals who teach or conduct research in affiliation with institutes abroad annually through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.
Visit the Fulbright Program website for more information.
