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K-State Today

August 13, 2020

Geography and Geospatial Sciences professor awarded Fulbright Flex Award

Submitted by Malorie Sougey

Bimal Paul, professor in the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Geography and Geospatial Sciences, has been offered a Fulbright Flex Award for the 2020-2021 academic year by the U.S. Department of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the J. Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

The award is for two years, with five months to be spent in Nepal. This award allows Paul to visit Nepal twice in two years. Each visit will be for two and a half months, and he will be hosted by the Central Department of Population Studies at Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal.

As a Fulbright Flex awardee, Paul will conduct and complete a research project on "Household Compliance with Public Seismic Safety Measures after the 2015 Nepal Earthquakes." Nepal experienced two major earthquakes within 16 days — the first on April 25, 2015, measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, and the second had a magnitude 7.3 tremor on May 12, 2015. These two major earthquakes and their strong aftershocks destroyed and damaged 500,000 and 250,000 houses, respectively, displacing 2 million people, claiming approximately 9,000 lives, and injuring more than 23,000 individuals.

"Dr. Paul's Fulbright Flex Award is testament to his international reputation for the groundbreaking research he has been undertaking on the aftermath of the devastating April 2015 earthquake in Nepal, work that has previously been supported by the National Science Foundation," said Charles Martin, head of the Department of Geography and Geospatial Sciences. "He remains a leading international authority on hazards and disaster response, experience and expertise that he brings to the students in his classes at K-State."

Paul will travel to Nepal in March 2021 and May 2022.