The Heritage Foundation’s Paul Winfree has been elected to serve as chair of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board for the year 2020. He was appointed to the board in 2019 by President Donald Trump.

Fulbright programs are federally funded cultural exchange programs, administered by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Since Congress established the Fulbright Program in 1946, more than 390,000 scholars, scientists, teachers, students, and artists have received the opportunity to work toward solving some of the most pressing problems facing society, according to the bureau’s website.

“It is a great honor to be elected as chair of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board,” said Winfree. “Today, Fulbright is as important as ever by supporting international collaboration to address our most critical challenges through scholarship and other academic exchanges in the United States and around the world.”

The United States works in partnership with more than 160 countries worldwide within the Fulbright program offering scholarships to a variety of individuals pursuing important research and professional projects. American scholarship recipients live abroad to conduct research and teach; meanwhile, foreign recipients are invited to visit the U.S. for the same purpose.

Winfree is director of Heritage’s Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies as well as the Richard F. Aster fellow. He is also the author of “A History (and Future) of the Budget Process in the United States” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). His policy work in the field of economics focuses on public finance, the federal budget process, and the history of economic thought.