Olivia Flores, M.A.T. is a dynamic educator and leader of over a decade from the Chicago area and a proud transplant of six years to the Kansas City community. A multiethnic, non-native Spanish speaker, Olivia’s trajectory changed when she received the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship that funded her own Spanish immersion in Argentina.

Olivia dedicated herself to teaching English Language Arts on Chicago’s Southside before completing a Fulbright grant in Colombia. The Green Fellowship brought Olivia to Kansas City where she founded the Kauffman School’s AP Literature and Composition course where her students achieved a 78% pass rate on the College Board exam. Olivia then moved to Kansas City Public Schools where she championed the region’s first 7th-12th Dual Language Spanish Immersion Program as Paseo Academy’s Spanish Literacy teacher and advocated for equitable options for the Latine community as a member of the Board of Education’s Hispanic Development Committee.

Today, the program serves over 100 bilingual students, is completing its 4-year dual credit pilot with UMKC, manages a $10,000.00 BeGreat Together grant, and continues to offer bilingual education to students of proud African American, Afro-Latine, Indigenous, Latine, and Caucasian backgrounds.

Eric has had a career in research and advocacy that spans nearly two decades. He has worked closely with community members, nonprofits, and corporations to highlight systemic inequities and champion solutions, access to resources, and opportunities for frequently underrepresented stakeholders.

Eric received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Hofstra University in New York. In 2008, he was awarded a Fulbright research grant to Hungary, where he studied discrimination against the Roma in public education and drew comparisons to post-Brown v. Board of Education policies in the U.S.

Gabriel Antuna-Rivera is an alumni of the Montgomery Community College, the vocational school Alaska Career College and Georgetown University. He is also a recent alumni of the Fulbright Program and its Mongolia cohort of ETAs from the 2023-2024 cycle.

He has worked as a contractor, educator and collaborator in a variety of fields ranging from holistic healthcare, workforce preparation, language learning and cultural exchange. He currently lives in Arizona.

Dr. Ana Gil Garcia is a Venezuelan-American scholar, a published author, and a 5-time Fulbright Scholar to Armenia, Georgia, Liberia, Venezuela, and Middle Eastern countries.

Dr. Gil Garcia has held numerous educational leadership roles, most recently serving as the Director of Academic Effectiveness at St. Augustine College. She is the co-author of a two-time bestseller, “Unstoppable Women” and “The Miracle Woman,” an anthology on her life. She has also been a visiting professor at universities in the United States and seven other countries. With her Doctorate in higher education from Western Michigan University, she is an exceptional academic leader, and her expertise is widely respected.⁠

In the first episode of Season 2, Host Sofia Gonzalez, Fulbright Alum and Fulbright Latinx board member interviews her friend and fellow world traveler Alex Pajares from New York. They experienced Teachers for Global Classrooms India in 2023 in the same cohort. As fellow teachers and world travelers, Sofia and Alex unravel their lived experiences in and out of the classroom, while stressing the importance of more Latinx educators and leaders to apply for the Fulbright grant experience.

"Choosing the Exchange Program That’s Right for Me" was our first in-person panel of our Alumni Panel Series that was hosted at @miamidadecollege. Our panelists discussed some of the international exchange opportunities available and how they identified the program that was right for them. We hope this discussion helps you identify the various international programs that might be right for you.

You might be thinking about applying to an international exchange program, but already have kids and a partner. You want to continue your studies, but don’t want to leave them behind for a whole year. ⁠⁠Join us to learn from international exchange alumni who brought their families with them abroad and what that was like.⁠⁠

Interested in starting an affinity with your international exchange peers? ⁠⁠Join us on to learn from affinity groups co-founders of @FulbrightPrism, @Fulbright Latinx, @FulbrightNoir, and more! They’ll discuss what it takes to find your community.⁠