Kristofer Helgen - U.S. Student to Australia
Field: Zoology
Host Institution: University of Adelaide
Grant Dates: 2001
Fulbright alumnus Dr. Kristofer Helgen poses with the Bosavi woolly rat. (Photo credit: Muse Opiang)
Dr. Kristofer Helgen, a zoologist and curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC and a Fulbright alumnus, discovered a new species of giant rat in the jungle of the Mount Bosavi crater in Papua New Guinea in September 2009.
The rat, informally named the Bosavi woolly rat, was discovered by Dr. Helgen and Muse Opiang (an alumnus of the United States-South Pacific Scholarship program, another State Department-sponsored exchange program) while accompanied by a natural history television crew from the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Dr. Helgen credits his Fulbright grant to Australia in increasing his interest in the mammals of Australia and New Guinea. While in Australia, he studied with famed Australian mammalogist Dr. Timothy Flannery at the University of Adelaide. Dr. Helgen discovered 20 mammal species on his Fulbright grant and even named one of these new species, a bat, after J. William Fulbright.
Dr. Helgen says: “The Fulbright grant brought me to Australia in 2001, which turned out to be one of the most important factors in my early career as a zoologist. This is what launched my studies of the mammals of Australia and New Guinea, which remains my most important line of research today. The purpose of the Fulbright grant is to foster intellectual exchange and mutual understanding across national borders, goals that are broadly shared in the global scientific community. I would definitely encourage young scientists to seek out the Fulbright experience.”
To the U.S.-Australia Fulbright Program