Kent State University at Trumbull's Dr. Daniel-Raymond Nadon has named the grand prize winner of Fulbright Canada's 20th Anniversary Alumni Essay Contest.

The Fulbright Foundation for Educational Exchange between Canada and the United States of America is a bi-national, treaty-based, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization which was established in 1990 with a mandate to identify the best and brightest minds in both countries and engage them in residential, academic, and professional exchange. The Foundation provides support to students, graduate students, scholars, teachers, and independent researchers through a variety of programs. Programs include all fields of scholarship, and, with the exception of medical training, are open to everyone in the pure and applied sciences, in all areas of social science, and across the humanities.

The central purpose of the Foundation, which maintains a secretariat and professional staff in Ottawa, Ontario, is to promote mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States and Canada. More specifically, the Foundation is charged with supporting and encouraging scholarship, very broadly defined, on issues of primary importance to the two countries and in building collaborative relationships and long-term institutional partnerships. In doing so, the Foundation is attempting to play a role in building of overall intellectual capacity, in increasing productivity, and in assisting in the shaping of future leaders in both countries. In this manner, the Foundation strives to enhance understanding between Canada and the United States and contribute to meeting our common purposes.

As the grand prize winner, Nadon, a Fulbright US student in 1992, will receive an all expenses paid trip to the Fulbright Canada 20th Anniversary Gala in Ottawa, Ontario on September 23.

"My Fulbright grant assisted me in the development of my dissertation on playwright Michel Tremblay, whom I interviewed and who aided in my research during my stay in Montreal all those years ago," said Nadon.

Nadon went on to direct the Tremblay-penned play "Les Belles Soeurs" (The Sisters-in-Law) in 1996.