‘This Project Has My Name Written All Over It’: MCPHS Professor Earns Fulbright Specialist Award

Nursing professor Dr. Trae Stewart will design an English curriculum for public health students at the University of Conakry in Guinea.

When Dr. Trae Stewart first stepped into a public restroom in Japan, he didn’t expect a professional epiphany. But the pristine space—with its advanced toilets, spotless floors, and clear sense of communal responsibility—stayed with him.

“It struck me that this was public health at its most basic level,” said Stewart, Professor of Nursing at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS). “Something as simple as hygiene infrastructure shapes how people live, how they relate to their environment, and even how they treat one another.”

That perspective—seeing the connections between culture, health, and education—has guided Stewart across continents, from working in a methadone clinic in Tanzania to teaching in schools outside Nairobi. This fall, he will carry it to Guinea, West Africa, where he has been awarded a Fulbright Specialist Program grant by the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

The Specialist Program is highly selective, with only about 400 U.S. experts placed worldwide each year. To put that in perspective, there are roughly 450 players on NBA rosters at any given time. Landing a Fulbright Specialist award, in other words, is like making it to the pros.

Stewart will collaborate with the Africa Center of Excellence at the University Gamal Abdel Nasser in Conakry to design and implement a Public Health English curriculum. The program will give Master of Public Health and PhD students structured English training so they can read and publish research, participate in international conferences, and strengthen collaborations with peers around the world.

“English, for better or worse, is the language of science and research,” Stewart said. “If you don’t have access to it, you’re limited from the global conversation.”

Global Mission, Local Impact
At MCPHS, Stewart serves as coordinator of the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Track. He also runs PsychMatters, a clinical practice providing psychiatric services to patients. His work in mental health gives him a front-row view of the challenges communities face at home—a perspective that informs his projects abroad.

“This project really has my name written all over it,” he said. “It sits right in the confluence of my interests in global health, education, language, and public health.”

That mix of passions is also reflected in Stewart’s academic background. He has a doctorate in international development and intercultural education, two master’s-level nursing degrees, a Master of Public Health in environmental health, a master’s in forensic psychology, a master’s in education policy, planning, and administration, a master’s in Teaching English as a Second Language, and bachelor’s degrees in French and Spanish.

Lessons Abroad

Stewart was selected for a Fulbright project once before, but the pandemic halted his plans before he could travel to Chile. That experience, he said, made this year’s opportunity especially meaningful.

“This time, I get to see it through—to work side-by-side with colleagues who are building something that can have a lasting impact,” he said.

Even without the earlier Fulbright, Stewart has spent much of his career working internationally. He has consulted on youth leadership and community health initiatives in Palestine and Afghanistan and volunteered in psychiatric and methadone clinics in Tanzania. Those experiences, he said, taught him that education and health initiatives must always be rooted in context.

While teaching in Kenya, Stewart was struck by how many of his students came to class despite being visibly ill. “It was humbling,” he said. “They were determined to learn, even when they didn’t feel well. It made me rethink what commitment to education really looks like.”

That lesson deepened during a project in Palestine, where he worked with young people redefining leadership as service to others rather than personal status. “They saw leadership as showing up for your community,” Stewart said. “That perspective stays with me wherever I go.”

Stewart grew up outside Memphis in a community where he said he often felt like an outsider. Education became both a pathway and a passport. His early love of languages led to international development work, which later inspired advanced study in public health and psychiatric nursing. Today, he describes himself as a “scholar-practitioner,” equally at home in the classroom, the clinic, and the field.

His first stint in Guinea will wrap up in late November. Stewart is scheduled to land back in the United States on Thanksgiving Day.

“I’ll be exhausted,” he said with a laugh, “but hopefully someone will save me a slice of pumpkin pie.”