Warren Spielberg, a psychology faculty member at The New School for General Studies has been awarded a Fulbright Scholars award for the 2010 academic year The award will take him to Al Quds University, one of the leading Palestinian Universities on the West Bank, making him not only among the first group of Fullbright awardees to placed on the West Bank in many years because of the political instability, but the first American Jew to be placed on the West Bank.

Spielberg will have many tasks during his year at Al Quds University. First, he will assist the university with the development of a child mental health treatment center in East Jerusalem. This center will focus on trauma treatment. Second, he will be setting up dialogues between Israeli and Palestinian scholars, students and policymakers from both Al Quds and a number of Israeli institutions. Third, he will be teaching at the university in the areas of clinical and applied psychology, and lastly he will be trying to establish an ongoing collaboration between Al Quds and The New School that will benefit both institutions.

The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship international-educational exchange program, is sponsored by the United States Department of State and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Since its establishment in 1946, under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has funded approximately 286,500 Americans to study, teach, or research abroad, and 178,340 students, scholars, and teachers from other countries to engage in similar activities in the United States. The program operates in over 155 countries worldwide.