SRU instructor receives award from Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
Joveline Pettus, a Slippery Rock University instructor of business, has recently received the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award for the 2026-27 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
Pettus will design and teach graduate-level coursework in digital ethics, leadership and strategic communication at Makerere University in Uganda as part of the Fulbright international academic exchange program.
The goal of her project is to strengthen digital ethics and responsible leadership education in East Africa and equip students with frameworks for navigating online safety, misinformation, AI ethics and data governance.
“My research and teaching sit at the intersection of cybersecurity, digital harm, and AI ethics — fields where the questions are global but the conversation is often shaped by only a handful of voices,” Pettus said. “The Fulbright Scholar Program offered a way to widen that conversation. I hope to contribute to the dialogue around digital safety, responsible AI, and protecting vulnerable users in fast‑digitizing societies and to build collaborations and friendships that outlast the grant year.
“The best Fulbright outcomes aren’t one‑way; they’re the relationships and ideas that keep working long after you come home.”
Pettus is a part-time faculty member within SRU’s Haverlack College of Business who is a candidate for a doctoral degree in information systems and communications at Robert Morris University.
Since 1946, the Fulbright Program has supported more than 500,000 award recipients, including 62 Nobel Laureates, 98 Pulitzer Prize winners, 82 MacArthur Fellows, 44 heads of state or government, as well as leaders across the private, public and non-profit sectors.
