Arts and SciencesApril 17, 2024

Fourth Fulbright Award Sends Kannan to Malaysia

Written By: Dr. Judith Hansen

In a letter of congratulations to Dr. Ragupathy Kannan, professor of Biological Science, UAFS Chancellor Terisa Riley wrote, “I can honestly say that throughout my long career, I have never known anyone who has received four Fulbrights. What an outstanding achievement.” 

It is indeed rare for one researcher to earn so many prestigious awards. Previously, Kannan was a Fulbright Scholar to India (2007) and Sri Lanka (2020) and a Fulbright Specialist to India (2019). His most recent Fulbright Scholar award will take him to Malaysia later this summer, where he will teach students to monitor tropical biodiversity at Sunway University in Kuala Lumpur.

The subject is critical, Kannan said. Because climate change is an “existential threat to civilization and biodiversity, it is vital for students of all specialties (to learn its) causes, consequences, and solutions.”

He hopes to create a course that would attract enrollment by non-traditional students, including older students, non-biology majors, and the public. Once he has shown students how to record their observations on iNaturalist, the National Geographic Society’s portal for recording and learning about biodiversity, he plans to establish an ongoing project, Biodiversity of Sunway University Campus, that will be open to contributions from any citizen scientist.

Kannan has experience with such a project, having set up the Biodiversity of UAFS Campus on iNaturalist. Between April 14, 2022, when the account was created, and April 2, 2024, submitters made 866 observations of 323 species of wild organisms on the campus. Also, in a 14-day study-abroad tropical biology class in Belize, Kannan’s students completed an intense Belize Biodiversity Blitz, amassing 1,581 observations of more than 400 species. Although Kannan has a strong affinity for fowl, any wild organism – walking, crawling, flying, or slithering – can be posted on iNaturalist.

“Clearly, iNaturalist is catering to and nurturing (students’) curiosity towards the natural world. It is my dream to get Malaysian students hooked on this worthy pastime,” Kannan said in his application for the Fulbright award.

The Fulbright Program, named for the late Arkansas Sen. William J. Fulbright, is the US government’s flagship international educational exchange program. It offers scholars in more than 160 countries the opportunity to study, teach, conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to mutual understanding. Fulbrighters from all backgrounds inspire, innovate, and contribute to finding solutions to challenges facing our communities and world.

Kannan’s award letter states that Fulbright alums have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, cabinet ministers, CEOs, and university presidents. They include 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 80 MacArthur Fellows.

In addition to teaching the biodiversity course and creating the iNaturalist project, Kannan has further goals for his trip. He plans to initiate data mining projects, having students search through published records, looking for changes over time in the behavior or range of a species.

Kannan also plans to develop and offer a locally relevant climate change seminar.

“I will drive home the point that for some species, there may not be enough habitat left to move into, and (they) are therefore doomed to extinction,” Kannan said.

He also wants to offer a series of lectures on climate change. He has provided such lectures all over the world, with audience members commonly noting, “I knew climate change is a problem, but … now I know how urgent it is.” An essential part of the presentations is recommendations to audience members to reduce their carbon footprint and elect climate-conscious public officials.

Kannan hopes to present lectures in various places nationwide, speaking to non-governmental organizations, schools, and higher education institutions, especially agencies that benefit women and indigenous people. He will use Fulbright’s regional travel grants to make these presentations in neighboring Southeast Asian countries.

Finally, Kannan hopes to be a technical advisor to devise and guide biodiversity-related conservation projects. He wants to facilitate the development of master- and doctoral-level projects pertaining to biodiversity for Malaysian graduate students.

Kannan believes that the study of biodiversity must focus on the places the species are, often in tropical locales. With the help of a Lucille Speakman Legacy Endowment award earlier this year, Kannan went to the western African country of Gambia, where he expanded his published bird recordings at eBird.org, Cornell University’s global online platform. He has published 855 peer-reviewed recordings of 457 species from five continents.

Among those are 111 recordings from Sri Lanka, where, thanks to the Fulbright program, he was studying in March 2020, when much of the world shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kannan and his wife were delayed in Sri Lanka for more than a year.

The Speakman Award, named for a beloved Fort Smith Junior College professor, supports faculty travel to bolster classroom instruction.

Kannan believes that his travels help him to make his knowledge relevant to students.

“As professional educators, we know that students connect better to an instructor who uses his/her own published works in the class,” he said about the value of the Speakman Award. “These audio files help me.”

Kannan also believes web-based tools like iNaturalist and eBird help engage young learners who may not respond to traditional teaching.

In his application for this Fulbright award, he wrote: “Students in the current digital age rely more on online and digital learning than traditional means.” Instead of insisting on older ways of doing things, instructors may have more success using digital content.

“Digital learning provides more interactivity, engagement, and retention than traditional modes,” Kannan wrote. “I plan to replicate and build on my prior successes to promote biota and climate change awareness in Malaysia.”

He has used eBird for many years but now leans to iNaturalist. The AI function in iNaturalist will tentatively identify the species, and experts from around the world agree or disagree. If a majority agrees, the photo becomes an official scientific record and is upgraded to Research Grade. Kannan said his students are excited whenever they learn of an upgrade, with one student squealing.

“No longer am I confined to the limits of my own specialty (vertebrates). Now I can cater to the school child interested in spiders, my college colleague keen on lichens or mosses, or the curious student wondering what that brown snake they saw in the lawn was.”