Paso Robles resident Sara Lopus receives Fulbright grant for research in Brazil
Sara Lopus.
Program provides grants to U.S. faculty members to conduct research or teach abroad
– Paso Robles resident Sara Lopus, associate professor at California Polytechnic State University, has received a Fulbright grant to conduct research in Brazil this summer.
Lopus, a demographer in the university’s social sciences department, will carry out research on family structure and educational outcomes at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte.
The award is part of the Fulbright Scholar Program, administered by the U.S. State Department. The program provides grants to U.S. faculty members to conduct research or teach abroad.
This will be Lopus’s first visit to Brazil. She previously learned Portuguese while conducting research in Mozambique and attending language courses in Lisbon, Coimbra, and the Azores.
She will travel with her husband, Brannon Larson, a teacher at Glen Speck Elementary, and their children Rudd and Inez, who are students at Georgia Brown.
“I am looking forward to this amazing opportunity for cultural immersion and to experience life in a big city that you don’t hear a lot about outside of Brazil,” Lopus said. “I’ll be excited to bring my new knowledge and networks back to Cal Poly, where my students will benefit from engaging, internationalized course content.”
