Mohsen Razzaghi, department head of the Department of Math and Statistics at Mississippi State University, was awarded a Fulbright scholarship for lecturing and researching at the Technical University of Civil Engineering in Bucharest, Romania, for the 2011-2012 school year.
Razzaghi said the Fulbright Scholar program operates in over 155 countries and has given about 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and scientists the opportunity to study, conduct research and contribute to finding solutions to international concerns since the program’s establishment in 1946.
Many Fulbright alumni have held prestigious positions such as judges, heads of state, ambassadors and university presidents, and 43 Fulbright scholars have been awarded Nobel prizes, he  said.
Razzaghi said he will help accomplish one of the main goals of the Fulbright program as he conducts research in Romania.
“As a representative of the United States in Romania, I will help fulfill the principal purpose of the Fulbright program, which is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and the people of the more than 150 countries that currently participate in the program,” Razzaghi said.
He will be leading seminars and workshops at the graduate level that feature techniques he has developed for the study of orthogonal functions and wavelets in dynamical systems and engineering.
“Since there are currently no texts on some of the subjects I will be teaching, I will have to develop appropriate course materials, which the Technical University of Engineering — and hopefully others as well — would then be able to use after my departure,” he said. “For me, this will be a very good opportunity to reflect on my work.”
Len Miller, professor and undergraduate academic coordinator for the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, said Razzaghi’s work concentrations are well-suited for the interests of Technical University of Civil Engineering.
“His work is centered primarily on problems in optimal control, dynamical systems and orthogonal functions with emphasis on engineering applications, and thus meshes particularly well with the research interests of his host institution, the Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest,” he said.
Miller said he is confident MSU will benefit from Razzaghi’s work in Romania.
“Mohsen is an excellent collaborator, and I’m sure that his work there will result in associations that will grow in time, benefitting programs at MSU as well as those at the Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest,” he said.
In an article published by University Relations, Stephen Cottrell, assistant director of the International Institute at MSU and campus Fulbright representative for faculty, said Razzaghi’s leadership in academics and scholarship will make his experience successful.
“I have no doubt that results of his research, coupled with the Romanian faculty and student connections he will make, will go far in helping actualize our university’s global mission,” Cottrell said.